Full text of "Diary"
DIARY,
FROM
MARCH 4, 1861, TO NOVEMBER 12, 1862,
ADAM GUROWSKI.
BOSTON:
LEE AND SHEPARD,
SCCCES80KS TO PHILLIPS, SIMPSON It CO.
1862.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1862, by
LEE AND SHEPARD,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts
TO
THE WIDOWED WIVES, THE BEREAVED MOTHERS, SISTERS,
SWEETHEARTS, AND ORPHANS
IN
THE LOYAL STATES,
On doit a son pays sa fortune, sa vie, mais avant
tout la Verite.
IN this Diary I recorded what I heard and saw myself, and
what I heard from others, on whose veracity I can implicitly
rely.
I recorded impressions as immediately as I felt them. A
life almost wholly spent in the tempests and among the break
ers of our times has taught me that the first impressions are
the purest and the best.
If they ever peruse these pages, my friends and acquaint
ances will find therein what, during these horrible national
trials, was a subject of our confidential conversations and dis
cussions, what in letters and by mouth was a subject of re
peated forebodings and warnings. Perhaps these pages may
in some way explain a phenomenon almost unexampled in his
tory, — that twenty millions of people, brave, highly intelli
gent, and mastering all the wealth of modern civilization,
were, if not virtually overpowered, at least so long kept at
bay by about five millions of rebels.
GUKOWSKI.
"WASHINGTON, NOVEMBER, 18C2.
CONTENTS.
MARCH, 1861.
Inauguration day — The message — Scott watching- at the door of the
Union — The Cabinet born — The Seward and Chase struggle — The
New York radicals triumph — The treason spreads — The Cabinet pays
old party debts — The diplomats confounded — Poor Senators ! — Sum-
ner is like a hare tracked by hounds — Chase in favor of recognizing
the revolted States — Blunted axes — Blair demands action, brave fel
low!— The slave-drivers — The month of March closes — No fore
sight ! no foresight ! 13
APRIL, 1861.
Seward parleying with the rebel commissioners — Corcoran' s dinner —
The crime in full blast ! — 75,000 men called for — Massachusetts takes
the lead — Baltimore — Defence of Washington — Blockade discus scd
— France our friend, not England — Warning to the President — Vir
ginia secedes — Lincoln warned again — Seward says it will all blow
over in sixty to ninety days — Charles F. Adams — The administra
tion undecided ; the people alone inspired— Slavery must perish ! —
The Fabian policy — The Blairs — Strange conduct of Scott— Lord
Lyons — Secret agent to Canada, 22
3
IV CONTENTS.
MAY, 1861.
The administration tossed by expedients — Seward to Dayton — Spread-
eagleism — One phasis of the American Union finished — The fuss
about Russell — Pressure on the administration increases — Seward,
Wickoff, and the Herald — Lord Lyons menaced with passports — The
splendid Northern army — The administration not up to the occasion
— The new men— Andrew, Wads worth, Boutwell, Noyes, Wade,
Trumbull, Walcott, King, Chandler, Wilson — Lyon jumps over for
mulas — Governor Banks needed — Butler takes Baltimore with two
regiments — News from England — The "belligerent" question —
Butler and Scott— Seward and the diplomats — " What a Merlin 1 " —
" France not bigger than New York! " — Virginia invaded— Murder
of Ellsworth — Harpies at the White House, 37
JUNE, 1861.
Butler emancipates slaves — The army not organized — Promenades —
The blockade — Louis Napoleon — Scott all in all — Strategy ! — Gun
contracts — The diplomats — Masked batteries — Seward writes for
" bunkum " — Big Bethel — The Dayton letter — Instructions to Mr.
Adams, 50
JULY, 1861.
The Evening Post — The message — The administration caught napping
— McDowell — Congress slowly feels its way— Seward's great facil
ity of labor — Not a Know-Nothing—Prophesies a speedy end— Car
ried away by his imagination — Says "secession is over" — Hopeful
views — Politeness of the State department — Scott carries on the
CONTENTS. V
campaign from bis sleeping room — Bull Run — Rout — Panic — " Mal
ediction! Malediction!" — Not a manly word in Congress! — Abuse
of tbe soldiers — McClcllan sent for — Young blood — Gen. Wads-
worth— Poor McDowell! — Scott responsible — Plan of reorganiza
tion — Let McClcllan beware of routine, GO
AUGUST, 1861.
The truth about Bull Run — The press staggers — The Blairs alone firm
— Scott's military character — Seward — Mr. Lincoln reads the Her
ald — The ubiquitous lobbyist — Intervention — Congress adjourns —
The administration waits for something to turn up — Wade — Lyon is
killed — Russell and his shadow — The Yankees take the loan — Bra
vo, Yankees! — McClellan works hard — Prince Napoleon — Manas-
sas fortifications a humbug —Mr. Scward improves — Old Whigism —
McClcllan's powers enlarged— Jeff. Davis makes history — Fremont
emancipates in Missouri — The Cabinet, 78
SEPTEMBER, 1861.
What will McClellan do ? — Fremont disavowed— The Blairs not in
fault — Fremont ignorant and a bungler — Conspiracy to destroy him
— Seward rather on his side- McClellan's staff — A Marcy will not
do ! —McClcllan publishes a slave-catching order — The people move
onward— Mr. Seward again— West Point — The Washington de
fences — What a Russian officer thought of them — Oh, for battles ! —
Fremont wishes to attack Memphis ; a bold move ! — Seward's influ
ence over Lincoln — The people for Fremont —Col. Romanoff's opin
ion of the generals — McClcllan refuses to move — Manoeuvrings —
The people uneasy — The staff — The Orleans — Brave boys! — The
Potomac closed — Oh, poor nation ! — Mexico — McClellau and
Scott, 92
VI CONTENTS.
OCTOBER, 1861.
Experiments on the people's life-blood — McClcllan's uniform — The
army fit to move — The rebels treat us like children — We lose time
— Everything is defensive — The starvation theory— The anaconda
— First interview with McClellan — Impressions of him — His dis
trust of the volunteers — Not a Napoleon nor a Garibaldi — Mason
and Slidell — Seward admonishes Adams — Fremont goes overboard
— The pro-slavery party triumph— The collateral missions to Europe
— Peace impossible — Every Southern gentleman is a pirate — When
will we deal blows? — Inertia! inertia! 104
NOVEMBER, 1861.
Ball's Bluff— Whitewashing — " Victoria! Old Scott gone overboard! "
— His fatal influence — His conceit — Cameron — Intervention — More
reviews— "Weed, Everett, Hughes — Gov. Andrew — Boutwell —
Mason and Slidell caught — Lincoln frightened by the South Caro
lina success — Waits unnoticed in McClellan's library — Gen. Thomas
— Traitors and pedants — The Virginia campaign — West Point —
McClellan's speciality — When will they begin to see through
him ? 115
DECEMBER, 1861.
The message — Emancipation — State papers published — Curtis Noyes —
Greelcy not fit for Senator — Generalship all on the rebel side — The
South and the North — The sensationists — The new idol will cost the
people their life-blood ! — The Blairs — Poor Lincoln ! — The Trent
affair — Scott home again — The war investigation committee — Mr.
Mercier, 129
CONTENTS, VII
JANUARY, 1862.
The year 1861 ends badly — European defenders of slavery — Secession
lies — Jeremy Diddlers — Sensation-seekers —Despotic tendencies
— Atomistic Torquemadas — Congress chained by formulas — Burn-
side's expedition a sign of life — Will this McClcllan ever advance ? —
Mr. Adams unhorsed — He packs his trunks — Bad blankets — Aus
tria, Prussia, and Russia — The West Point nursery — McClcllan a
greater mistake than Scott — Tracks to the White House — European
stories about Mr. Lincoln — The English ignorami — The slaveholder
a scarcely varnished savage — Jeff. Davis — " Beaurcgard frightens
us — McClcllan rocks his baby " — Fancy army equipment — McClel-
lan and his chief of staff sick in bed — "No satirist could invent such
things " — Stanton in the Cabinet — " This Stanton is the people " —
Fremont — Weed — The English will not be humbugged — Dayton in
a fret — Beaufort — The investigating committee condemn McClellan
— Lincoln in the clutches of Seward and Blair — Banks begs for guns
and cavalry in vain — The people will awake ! — The question of race
— Agassiz, 137
FEBRUARY, 1862.
Drifting — The English blue book — Lord John could not act differently
— Palmer ston the great European fuss-maker — Mr. Seward's "two
pickled rods " for England — Lord Lyons — His pathway strewn with
broken glass — Gen. Stone arrested — Sumner's resolutions infuse a
new spirit in the Constitution — Mr. Seward beyond salvation— lie
works to save slavery — Weed has ruined him — The New York press
— " Poor Tribune " — The Evening Post — The Blairs — Illusions dis
pelled— « All quiet on the Potomac" —The London papers — Quill-
heroes can be bought for a dinner — French opinion — Superhuman
efforts to save slavery — It is doomed! — "All you worshippers of
darkness cannot save it!" — The Hutchinsons — Corporal Adams —
Victories in the West — Stanton the man ! — Strategy (hear ! ) . . .151
VHI CONTENTS.
MARCH, 1862.
The Africo-Americans — Fremont — The Orleans — Confiscation — Amer
ican nepotism — The Merrimac — Wooden guns — Oh shame! — Gen.
Wadsworth — The rats have the best of Stanton — McClellan goes to
Fortress Monroe— Utter imbecility — The embarkation — McClellan a
turtle — He will stick in the marshes — Louis Napoleon behaves nobly
— So does Mr. Mercier — Queen Victoria for freedom — The great
strategian — Senator Sumner and the French minister — Archbishop
Hughes — His diplomatic activity not worth the postage on his cor
respondence — Alberoni-Seward — Love's labor lost, 105
APRIL, 1862.
Immense power of the President — Mr. Seward's Egeria — Programme
of peace — The belligerent question — Roebucks and Gregories scuma
— Running the blockade — Weed and Seward take clouds for camels
— Uncle Sam's pockets — Manhood, not money, the sinews of war —
Colonization schemes — Senator Doolittle — Coal mine speculation —
Washington too near the seat of war — Blair demands the return of a
fugitive slave woman— Slavery is Mr. Lincoln's " mammy" —Uc will
not destroy her — Victories in the West — The brave navy — McClel
lan subsides in mud before Yorktown — Telegraphs for more men —
God will be tired out ! — Great strength of the people — Emancipa
tion in the District — Wade's speech — He is a monolith — Chase and
Seward — N. Y. Times — The Rothschilds — Army movements and
plans, ISO
MAY,JL862
Capture of New Orleans — The second siege of Troy — Mr. Seward lights
his lantern to search for the Union-saving party — Subserviency to
CONTENTS. IX
power — Vitality of the people — Yorktown evacuated — Battle of
Willlamsburg — Great bayonet charge! — Heintzelman arid Hooker
— McClcllau telegraphs that the enemy outnumber him — The terri
ble enemy evacuate Williamsburg — The track of truth begins to be
lost — Oh Napoleon ! — Oh spirit of Berthier ! — Dayton not in favor
— Events are too rapid for Lincoln — His integrity — Too tender of
men's feelings — Hallcck — Ten thousand men disabled by disease —
The Bishop of Orleans — The rebels retreat without the knowledge
of McNapoleon — Hunter's proclamation — Too noble for Mr. Lincoln
— McClcllan again subsides in mud — Jackson defeats Banks, who
makes a masterly retreat — Bravo, Banks ! — The aulic council fright
ened — Gov. Andrew's letter — Sigel — English opinion — Mr. Mill —
YoungEuropa — Young Germany — Corinth evacuated — Oh, gener
alship I — McDowell grimly persecuted by bad luck, 198
JUNE, 1862.
Diplomatic circulars seasoned by stories — Battle before Richmond —
Casey's division disgraced — McClellan afterwards confesses ho
was misinformed— Fair Oaks — " Nobody is hurt, only the bleeding
people " — Fremont disobeys orders — N. Y. Times, World, and Her
ald, opinion-poisoning sheets — Napoleon never visible before nine
o'clock in the morning — Hooker and the other fighters soldered
to the mud — Senator Sumncr shows the practical side of his intel
lect— " Slavery a big job! " — McClellan sends for mortars — Defend
ers of slavery in Congress worse than the rebels — Wooden guns
and cotton sentries at Corinth — The navy is glorious — Brave old
Gideon Welles ! — July 4th to be celebrated in Richmond ! — Coloni
zation again — Justice to France — New regiments — The people sub
lime ! — Congress — Lincoln visits Scott — McDowell — Pope — Dis
loyalty in the departments, 218
CONTENTS.
JULY, 1862.
Intervention — The cursed fields of the Chickahominy— Titanic fight
ings, but no generalship — McClellan the first to reach James river
— The Orleans leave — July 4th, the gloomiest since the birth of the
republic — Not reinforcements, but brains, wanted; and brains not
transferable ! — The people run to the rescue — Rebel tactics — Lincoln
does not sacrifice Stanton — McClellan not the greatest culprit —
Stanton a true statesman — The President goes to James river — The
Union as it was, a throttling nightmare! — A man needed! — Con
fiscation bill signed — Congress adjourned — Mr. Dicey — Halleck, the
American Carnot — Lincoln tries to neutralize the confiscation bill —
Guerillas spread like locusts, 233
AUGUST, 1862.
Emancipation — The President's hand falls back — Weed sent for — Gen.
"VVadsworth — The new levies — The Africo- Americans not called for
— Let every Northern man be shot rather ! — End of the Peninsula
campaign — Fifty or sixty thousand dead — Who is responsible? —
The army saved — Lincoln and McClellan — The President and the
Africo-Americans — An Eden in Chiriqui — Greeley — The old lion
begins to awake — Mr. Lincoln tells stories — The rebels take the
offensive — European opinion — McClellan's army landed — Roebuck
— Halleck— Butler's mistakes — Hunter recalled — Terrible fighting
at Manas sas — Pope cuts his way through — Reinforcements slow
incoming — McClellan reduced in command, 245
SEPTEMBER, 1862.
Consummatum est ! —Will the outraged people avenge itself? — McClel
lan satisfies the President — After a year ! — The truth will be throt
tled— Public opinion in Europe begins to abandon us — The country
CONTENTS. XI
inarching to its tonjb — Hooker, Kearney, Heintzelman, Sigel, brave
and true men — Supremacy of mind over matter — Stanton the last
Roman — Inauguration of the pretorian regime — Pope accuses three
generals — Investigation prevented by McClellan — McDowell sacri
ficed — The country inundated with lies — The demoralized army de
clares for McClellan — The pretorians will soon finish with liberty —
Wilkes sent to the West Indian waters — Russia — Mediation — In
vasion of Maryland — Strange story about Stanton— Ilichmond never
invested— McClellan in search of the enemy — Thirty miles in six
days — The telegrams — Wadsworth — Capitulation of Harper's
Ferry*- Five days' fighting — Brave Hooker wounded — Xo results
— No reports from McClellan — Tactics of the Maryland campaign —
Nobody hurt in the staff— Charmed lives — Wadsworth, Judge
Conway, Wade, Boutwcll, Andrew — This most intelligent people be
come the laughing-stock of the world ! — The proclamation of eman
cipation — Scward to the Paisley Association — Future complica
tions—If Hooker had not been wounded! — The military situa
tion — Sigcl persecuted by West Point — Three cheers for the
carriage and six ! — How the great captain was to catch the rebel army
— Interview with the Chicago deputation — Winter quarters — The
conspiracy against Sigel — Numbers of the rebel army — Letters of
marque, - 258
OCTOBER, 1862.
Costly infatuation — The do-nothing strategy — Cavalry on lame horses
— Bayonet charges — Antietam — Effect of the Proclamation — Disas
ters in the West — The Abolitionists not originally hostile to McClel
lan— Helplessness in the War Department — Dcvotedness of the
people — McClellan and the proclamation — Wilkes — Colonel Key —
Routine engineers — Ilebel raid into Pennsylvania — Stanton's sin
cerity—Oh, unfighting strategians — The administration a success
-De (justibus — Stuart's raid — West Point — St. Domingo — The
President's letter to McClellan — Broad church — The elections —
The Republican party gone — The remedy at the polls — McClellan
XII CONTENTS.
wants to be relieved — Mediation — Compromise — The rhetors — The
optimists — The foreigners — Scott and Buchanan — Gladstone — For
eign opinion and action — Both the extremes to be put down — Spain
— Fremont's campaign against Jackson — Seward's circular — Gene
ral Scott's gift — "Oh, could I go to a camp !" — McClellan crosses
the Potomac — Prays for rain — Fevers decimate the regiments —
Martindale and Fit-z John Porter — The political balance to be pre
served — New regiments — O poor country I 288
NOVEMBER, 1862.
Empty rhetoric — The future dark and terrible — Wads worth defeated —
The oflioial bunglers blast everything they touch — Great and holy
day ! McClellan gone overboard ! — The planters — Burnside— McClel
lan nominated for President — Awful events approaching — Dictator
ship dawns on the horizon — The catastrophe, 311
DI AE Y
MARCH, 1861.
Inauguration day — The message— Scott watching at the door of the
Union — The Cabinet born — The Seward and Chase struggle — The
New York radicals triumph — The treason spreads — The Cabinet pays
old party debts — The diplomats confounded — Poor Senators !— Sum-
ner is like a hare tracked by hounds — Chase in favor of recognizing
the revolted States — Blunted axes — Blair demands action, brave fel
low!— The slave-drivers — The month of March closes — No fore
sight ! no foresight 1
FOR the first time in my life I assisted at the
simplest and grandest spectacle — the inauguration
of a President. Lincoln's message good, according
to circumstances, but not conclusive ; it is not posi
tive ; it discusses questions, but avoids to assert.
May his mind not be altogether of the same kind.
Events will want and demand more positiveness
and action than the message contains assertions.
The immense majority around me seems to be satis
fied. Well, well ; I wait, and prefer to judge and to
admire when actions will speak.
I am sure that a great drama will be played,
equal to any one known in history, and that the
insurrection of the slave-drivers will not end in
13
14 " 5 5* * ^ »? * f : . : • b i A*R Y. [MARCH, isei.
smoke. So I now decide to keep a diary in my own
way. I scarcely know any of those men who are
considered as leaders ; the more interesting to ob
serve them, to analyze their mettle, their actions.
Tin's insurrection may turn very complicated; if
so, it must generate more than one revolutionary
manifestation. What will be its march — what
stages ? Curious ; perhaps it may turn out more in
teresting than anything since that great renovation
of humanity by the great French Revolution.
The old, brave warrior, Scott, watched at the door
of the Union ; his shadow made the infamous rats
tremble and crawl off, and so Scott transmitted to
Lincoln what was and could be saved during the
treachery of Buchanan.
By the most propitious accident, I assisted at the
throes among which Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet was born.
They were very painful, but of the highest interest
for me, and I suppose for others. I participated
some little therein.
A pledge bound Mr. Lincoln to make Mr. Seward
his Secretary of State. The radical and the puri
tanic elements in the Republican party were terribly
scared. His speeches, or rather demeanor and re
peated utterances since the opening of the Congress,
his influence on Mr. Adams, who, under Seward's
inspiration, made his speech de lana caprina, and
voted for compromises and concessions, — all this
spread and fortified the general and firm belief that
Mr. Seward was ready to give up many from among
the cardinal articles of the Republican creed of
MAKCH, 1861.] DIARY. 15
*
which he was one of the most ardent apostles.
They, the Republicans, speak of him in a way to
remind me of the dictum, " omnia serviliter pro
dominations" as they accuse him now of subser
viency to the slave power. The radical and puritan
Republicans likewise dread him on account of his
close intimacy with a Thurlow Weed, a Mattcson,
and with similar not over-cautious — as they call
them — lobbyists.
Some days previous to the inauguration, Mr.
Seward brought Mr. Lincoln on the Senate floor, of
course on the Republican side ; but soon Mr. Seward
was busily running among Democrats, begging them
to be introduced to Lincoln. It was a saddening,
humiliating, and revolting sight for the galleries,
where I was. Criminal as is Mason, for a minute
I got reconciled to him for the scowl of horror and
contempt with which he shook his head at Seward.
The whole humiliating proceeding foreshadowed the
future policy. Only two or three Democratic Sena
tors were moved by Seward's humble entreaties.
The criminal Mason has shown true manhood.
The first attempt of sincere Republicans was to
persuade Lincoln to break his connection with Sew
ard. This failed. To neutralize what was con
sidered quickly to become a baneful influence in
Mr. Lincoln's councils, the Republicans united on
Gov. Chase. This Seward opposed with all his
might. Mr. Lincoln wavered, hesitated, and was
bending rather towards Mr. Seward. The struggle
was terrific, lasted several days, when Chase was
16 DIARY. [MARCH, 1861.
•
finally and triumphantly forced into the Cabinet.
It was necessary not to leave him there alone against
Seward, and perhaps Bates, the old cunning Whig.
Again terrible opposition by Seward, but it was
overcome by the radicals in the House, in the Sen
ate, and outside of Congress by such men as Curtis,
Noyes, J. S. Wadsworth, Opdyke, Barney, &c., &c.,
and Blair was brought in. Cameron was variously
opposed, but wished to be in by Seward; Welles
was from the start considered sound and safe ia
every respect ; Smith was considered a Seward man.
From what I witnessed of Cabinet-making in Eu
rope, above all in France under Louis Philippe, I do
not forebode anything good in the coming-on shocks
and eruptions, and I am sure these must come.
This Cabinet as it stands is not a fusion of various
shadowings of a party, but it is a violent mixing or
putting together of inimical and repulsive forces,
which, if they do not devour, at the best will neu
tralize each other.
Senator Wilson answered Douglass in the Senate,
that " when the Republican party took the power,
treason was in the army, in the navy, in the admin
istration," etc. Dreadful, but true assertion. It is
to be seen how the administration will act to coun
teract this ramified treason.
What a run, a race for offices. This spectacle
likewise new to me.
The Cabinet Ministers, or, as they call them here,
the Secretaries, have old party debts to pay, old
sores to avenge or to heal, and all this by distributing
MARCH, 1861. J DIARY. 17
offices, or by what they call it here — patronage.
Through patronage and offices everybody is to serve
his friends and his party, and to secure his political
position. Some of the party leaders seem to me
similar to children enjoying a long-expected and
ardently wishcd-for toy. Some of the leaders are
as generals who abandon the troops in a campaign,
and take to travel in foreign parts. Most of them
act as if they were sure that the battle is over. It
begins only, but nobody, or at least very few of the
interested, seem to admit that the country is on fire,
that a terrible struggle begins. (Wrote in this
sense an article for the National Intelligencer ; inser
tion refused.) They, the leaders, look to create
engines for their own political security, but no one
seems to look over Mason and Dixon's line to the
terrible and with lightning-like velocity spreading
fire of hellish treason.
The diplomats utterly upset, confused, and do not
know what god to worship. All their associations
were with Southerners, now traitors. In Southern
talk, or in that of treacherous Northern Democrats,
the diplomats learned what they know about this
country. Not one of them is familiar, is acquainted
with the genuine people of the North ; with its true,
noble, grand, and pure character. It is for them a
terra incognita, as is the moon. The little they
know of the North is the few money or cotton bags
of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, — these would-be
betters, these dinner-givers, and whist-players. The
2
18 DIARY. [MAECH, 1861.
diplomats consider Seward as the essence of North
ern feeling.
How little the thus-called statesmen know Europe.
Simmer, Seward, etc. already have under considera
tion if Europe will recognize the secesh. Europe
recognize sfaits accomplis, and a great deal of blood
will run before secesh becomes un fait accomplie
These Sewards, Sumners, etc. pay too much atten
tion to the silly talk of the European diplomats in
Washington; and by doing this these would-be
statesmen prove how ignorant they are of history in
general, and specially ignorant of the policy of Eu
ropean cabinets. Before a struggle decides a ques
tion a recognition is bosh, and I laugh at it.
The race, the race increases with a fearful rapid
ity. No flood does it so quick. Poor Senators !
Some of them must spend nights and days to decide
on whom to bestow this or that office. Secretaries
or Ministers wr angle, fight (that is the word used),
as if life and death depended upon it.
Poor (Carlylian-meaning) good-natured Senator
Sumiier, in his earnest, honest wish to be just and
of service to everybody, looks as a hare tracked by
hounds ; so are at him office-seekers from the whole
country. This hunting degrades the hounds, and
enervates the patrons.
I am told that the President is wholly absorbed in
adjusting, harmonizing the amount of various sala
ries bestowed on various States through its office
holders and office-seekers.
It were better if the President would devote his
MARCH, 1861.] DIARY. 19
time to calculate the forces and resources needed to
quench the fire. Over in Montgomery the slave-
drivers proceed with the terrible, unrelenting, fear
less earnestness of the most unflinching criminals.
After all, these crowds of office-hunters are far
from representing the best element of the genuine,
laborious, intelligent people, — of its true healthy
stamina. This is consoling for me, who know the
American people in the background of office-hunt
ers.
Of course an alleviating circumstance is, that the
method, the system, the routine, oblige, nay force,
everybody to ask, to hunt. As in the Scriptures,
"Ask, and you will get; or knock, and it will be
opened." Of course, many worthy, honorable, de
serving men, who would be ornaments to the office,
must run the gauntlet together with the hounds.
It is reported, and I am sure of the truth of the
report, that Governor Chase is for recognizing, or
giving up the revolted Cotton States, so as to save
by it the Border States, and eventually to fight for
their remaining in the Union. What logic ! If
the treasonable revolt is conceded to the Cotton
States, on what ground can it be denied to the thus
called Border States ? I am sorry that Chase has
such notions.
It is positively asserted by those who ought to
know, that Seward, having secured to himself the
Secretaryship of State, offered to the Southern lead
ers in Congress compromise and concessions, to
assure, by such step, his confirmation by the Demo-
20 DIARY. [MARCH, 1861.
cratic.vote. The chiefs refused the bargain, dis
trusting him. All this was going on for weeks, nay
months, previous to the inauguration, so it is asserted.
But Seward might have been anxious to preserve
the Union at any price. His enemies assert that if
Seward's plan had succeeded, virtually the Demo
crats would have had the power. Thus the mean
ing of Lincoln's election would have been destroyed,
and Buchanan's administration would have been
continued in its most dirty features, the name only
being changed.
Old Scott seems to be worried out by his laurels ;
he swallows incense, and I do not see that anything
whatever is done to meet the military emergency. I
see the cloud.
Were it true that Seward and Scott go hand in
hand, and that both, and even Chase, are blunted
axes!
I hear that Mr. Blair is the only one who swears,
demands, asks for action, for getting at them with
out losing time. Brave fellow ! I am glad to
have at Willard's many times piloted deputations to
the doors of Lincoln on behalf of Blair's admission
into the Cabinet. I do not know him, but will try
to become nearer acquainted.
But for the New York radical Republicans,
already named, neither Chase nor Blair would have
entered the Cabinet. But for them Seward would
have had it totally his own way. Members of Con
gress acted less than did the New Yorkers.
The South, or the rebels, slave-drivers, slave-
MARCH, 1861.] DIARY. 21
breeders, constitute the most corrosive social decom
positions and impurities ; what the human race
throughout countless ages successively toiled to
purify itself from and throw off. Europe con
tinually makes terrible and painful efforts, which
at times are marked by bloody destruction. This I
asserted in my various writings. This social, putre
fied evil, and the accumulated matter in the South,
pestilentially and in various ways influenced the
North, poisoning its normal healthy condition. This
abscess, undermining the national life, has burst now.
Somebody, something must die, but this apparent
death will generate a fresh and better life.
The month of March closes, but the administra
tion seems to enjoy the most beatific security. I do
not see one single sign of foresight, — this cardinal
criterion of statesmanship. Chase measures the
empty abyss of the treasury. Senator Wilson spoke
of treason everywhere, but the administration seems
not to go to work and to reconstruct, to fill up what
treason has disorganized and emptied. Nothing
about reorganizing the army, the navy, refitting the
arsenals. No foresight, no foresight ! either states
manlike or administrative. Curious to sec these
men at work. The whole efforts visible to me and
to others, and the only signs given by the adminis
tration in concert, are the paltry preparations to
send provisions to Fort Sumpter. What is the mat
ter ? what are they about ?
APRIL, 1861.
Seward parleying with the rebel commissioners — Corcoran's dinner —
The crime in full blast ! — 75,000 men called for — Massachusetts takes
the lead — Baltimore — Defence of "Washington — Blockade discussed
— France our friend, not England — "Warning to the President — Vir
ginia secedes — Lincoln warned again — Seward says it will all blow
over in sixty to ninety days — Charles F. Adams — The administra
tion undecided; the people alone inspired — Slavery must perish! —
The Fabian policy— The Blairs — Strange conduct of Scott— Lord
Lyons — Secret agent to Canada.
COMMISSIONERS from the rebels ; Seward parleying
with them through some Judge Campbell. Curious
way of treating -and dealing with rebellion, with
rebels and traitors ; why not arrest them ?
Corcoran, a rich partisan of secession, invited
to a dinner the rebel commissioners and the foreign
diplomats. If such a thing were done anywhere
else, such a pimp would be arrested. The serious
diplomats, Lord Lyons, Mercier, and Stoeckl refused
the invitation ; some smaller accepted, at least so I
hear.
The infamous traitors fire on the Union flag.
They treat the garrison of Sumpter as enemies on
sufferance, and here their commissioners go about
free, and glory in treason. What is this adminis
tration about? Have they no blood; are they
fishes ?
22
APKIL, 1861.] DIARY. 23
The crime in full blast ; consummatum cst. Surnp-
ter bombarded ; Virginia, under the nose of the ad
ministration, secedes, and the leaders did not see
or foresee anything : flirted with Virginia.
Now, they, the leaders or the administration, are
terribly startled ; so is the brave noble North ; the
people are taken unawares ; but no wonder ; the
people saw the Cabinet, the President, and the mili
tary in complacent security. These watchmen did
nothing to give an early sign of alarm, so the people,
confiding in them, went about its daily occupation.
But it will rise as one man and in terrible wrath.
Vous Ic vcrrez mess Ics Diplomatcs.
The President calls on the country for 75,000
men ; telegram has spoken, and they rise, they
arm, they come. I am not deceived in my faith in
the North ; the excitement, the wrath, is terrible.
Party lines burn, dissolved by the excitement. Now
the people is in fusion as bronze ; if Lincoln and
the leaders have mettle in themselves, then they can
cast such arms, moral, material, and legislative, as
will destroy at once this rebellion. But will they
have the energy ? They do not look like Demiourgi.
Massachusetts takes the lead ; always so, this first
people in the world ; first for peace by its civilization
and intellectual development, and first to run to the
rescue.
The most infamous treachery and murder, by Bal-
timoreans, of the Massachusetts men. Will the
cowardly murderers be exemplarily punished ?
The President, under the advice of Scott, seems
24 DIARY. [APRIL, 1861,
to take coolly the treasonable murders of Balti
more ; instead of action, again parleying with these
Baltimorean traitors. The rumor says that Seward
is for leniency, and goes hand in hand with Scott.
Now, if they will handle such murderers in silk
gloves as they do, the fire must spread.
The secessionists in Washington — and they are
a legion, of all hues and positions — are defiant,
arrogant, sure that Washington will be taken. One
risks to be murdered here.
I entered the thus called Cassius Clay Company,
organized for the defence of Washington until troops
came. For several days patrolled, drilled, and lay
several nights on the hard floor. Had compensa
tion, that the drill often reproduced that of Falstaff's
heroes. But my campaigners would have fought
well in case of emergency. Most of them office-
seekers. When the alarm was over, the company
dissolved, but each got a kind of certificate beauti
fully written and signed by Lincoln and Cameron.
I refused to take such a certificate, we having had
no occasion to fight.
The President issued a proclamation for the block
ade of the Southern revolted ports. Do they not
know better ?
How can the Minister of Foreign Affairs advise
the President to resort to such a measure ? Is the
Minister of Foreign Affairs so willing to call in for
eign nations by this blockade, thus transforming a
purely domestic and municipal question into an
international, public one ?
APRIL, 1861.] DIARY. 25
The President is to quench the rebellion, a do
mestic fire, and to do it he takes a weapon, an engine
the most difficult to handle, and in using of which
he depends on foreign nations. Do they not know
better here in the ministry and in the councils ?
Russia dealt differently with the revolted Circassians
and with England in the so celebrated case of the
Vixen.
The administration ought to know its rights of
sovereignty and to close the ports of entry. Then
no chance would be left to England to meddle.
YJcsterday N dined witli Lord Lyons, and
during the dinner an anonymous note announced
to the Lord that the proclamation of the blockade
is to be issued on to-morrow. N , who has a
romantic turn, or rather who seeks for midi a* 14f
heures, speculated what lady would have thus vio
lated a secret d* Etat.
I rather think it comes from the Ministry, or, as
they call it here, from the Department. About two
years ago, when the Central Americans were so teased
and maltreated by the fillibusters and Democratic
administration, a Minister of one of these Central
American States told me in New York that in a
Chief of the Departments, or something the like,
the Central Americans have a valuable friend, who,
every time that trouble is brewing against them in
the Department, gives them a secret and anony
mous notice of it. This friend may have trans
ferred his kindness to England.
How will foreign nations behave ? I wish I maj
26 DIARY. [APKIL, 1861.
be misguided by my political anglophobia, but Eng
land, envious, rapacious, and the Palmerstons and
others, filled with hatred towards the genuine de
mocracy and the American people, will play some
bad tricks. They will seize the occasion to avenge
many humiliations. Charles Sumner, Howe, and a
great many others, rely on England, — on her anti-
slavery feeling. I do not. I know English policy.
We shall see.
France, Frenchmen, and Louis Napoleon are by far
more reliable. The principles and the interest of
France, broadly conceived, make the existence of a
powerful Union a statesmanlike European and world
necessity. The cold, taciturn Louis Napoleon is
full of broad and clear conceptions. I am for rely
ing, almost explicitly, on France and on him.
The administration calls in all the men-of-war
scattered in all waters. As the commercial interests
of the Union will remain unprotected, the admin
istration ought to put them under the protection of
France. It is often done so between friendly pow
ers. Louis Napoleon could not refuse ; and accept
ing, would become pledged to our side.
Germany, great and small, governments and peo
ple, will be for the Union. Germans are honest ;
they love the Union, hate slavery, and understand,
to be sure, the question. Russia, safe, very safe,
few blackguards excepted ; so Italy. Spain may
play double. I do not expect that the Spaniards,
goaded to the quick by the former fillibustering
administrations, will have judgment enough to find
APRIL, 1861.] DIARY. 27
out that the Republicans have been and will be
anti-fillibusters, and do not crave Cuba.
"JVrotc a respectful warning to the President con
cerning the unvoidable results of his proclamation
in regard to the blockade ; explained to him that
this, his international demonstration, will, and
forcibly must evoke a counter proclamation from
foreign powers in the interest of their own respec
tive subjects and of their commercial relations.
Warned, foretelling that the foreign powers will rec
ognize the rebels as belligerents, he, the President,
having done it already in some way, thus applying
an international mode of coercion. Warned, that
the condition of belligerents, once recognized, the
rebel piratical crafts will be recognized as privateers
by foreign powers, and as such will be admitted to
all ports under the secesh flag, which will thus en
joy a partial recognition.
Foreign powers may grumble, or oppose the closing
of the ports of entry as a domestic, administrative
decision, because they may not wish to commit them
selves to submit to a paper blockade. But if the
President will declare that he will enforce the clos
ing of the ports with the whole navy, so as to strictly
guard and close the maritime league, then the foreign
powers will see that the administration does not in
tend to humbug them, but that he, the President,
will only preserve intact the fullest exercise of sov
ereignty, and, as said the Roman legist, he, the
President, " nil sibi postidat quod non aliis tribuit"
And so he, the President, will only execute the laws
28 DIARY. [APBIL, 1861.
of his country, and not any arbitrary measure, to
say with the Roman Emperor, " Leges etiam in
ipsa arma imperium habere volumus." Warned the
President 'that in all matters relating to this coun
try Louis Napoleon has abandoned the initiative to
England ; and to throw a small wedge in this alli
ance, I finally respectfully suggested to the Presi
dent what is said above about putting the American
interests in the Mediterranean under the protection
of Louis Napoleon.
Few days thereafter learned that Mr. Seward
does not believe that France will follow England.
Before long Seward will find it out.
All the coquetting with Virginia, all the pre
sumed influence of General Scott, ended in Virgin
ia's secession, and in the seizure of Norfolk.
Has ever any administration, cabinet, ministry —
call it what name you will — given positive, indubi
table signs of want and absence of foresight, as did
ours in these Virginia, Norfolk, and Harper's Ferry
affairs ? Not this or that minister or secretary, but
all of them ought to go to the constitutional guillo
tine. Blindness — no mere short-sightedness — per
meates the whole administration, Blair excepted.
And Scott, the politico-military adviser of the Presi
dent ! What is the matter with Scott, or were the
halo and incense surrounding him based on bosh ?
Will it be one more illusion to be dispelled ?
The administration understood not how to save or
defend Norfolk, nor how to destroy it. No name to
be found for such concrete incapacity. The rebels
APRIL, 1831.] DIARY. 29
are masters, taking our leaders by the nose. Nor
folk gives to them thousands of guns, <fcc., and no
body cries for shame. They ought to go in sack
cloth, those narrow-sighted, blind rulers. How
will the people stand this masterly administrative
demonstration ? In England the people and the
Parliament would impeach the whole Cabinet.
Charles Sumner told me that the President and
his Minister of Foreign Affairs are to propose to the
foreign powers the accession of the Union to tjie
celebrated convention of Paris of 1856. All three
considered it a master stroke of policy. They will
not catch a fly by it.
Again wrote respectfully to Mr. Lincoln, warning
him against a too hasty accession to the Paris
convention. Based my warning, —
1st. Not to give up the great principles contained
in Marcy's amendment.
2d. Not to believe or suppose for a minute that
the accession to the Paris convention at this time
can act in a retroactive sense ; explained that it will
not and cannot prevent the rebel pirates from being
recognized by foreign powers as legal privateers, or
being treated as such.
3d. For all these reasons the Union will not win
anything by such a step, but it will give up principles
and chain its own hands in case of any war with
England. Supplicated the President not to risk a
step which logically must turn wrong.
Baltimore still unpunished, and the President
parleying with various deputations, all this under the
30 DIARY. [APRIL, 1861.
guidance of Scott. I begin to be confused ; cannot
find out what is the character of Lincoln, and above
all of Scott.
Governors from whole or half-rebel States refuse
the President's call for troops. The original call of
75,000, too small in itself, will be reduced by that
refusal. Why does not the administration call for
more on the North, and on the free States ? In the
temper of this noble people it will be as easy to have
250,000 as 75,000, and then rush on them; sub
merge Virginia, North Carolina, etc. ; it can be now
so easily done. The Virginians are neither armed
nor organized. Courage and youth seemingly would
do good in the councils.
The free States undoubtedly will vindicate self-
government. "Whatever may be said by foreign and
domestic croakers, I do not doubt it for a single min
ute. The free people will show to the world that the
apparently loose governmental ribbons are the
strongest when everybody carries them in him, and
holds them. The people will show that the intellectual
magnetism of convictions permeating the million is
by far stronger than the commonly called govern
mental action from above, and it is at the same time
elastic and expansive, even if the official leaders may
turn out to be altogether mediocrities. The self-
governing free North will show more vitality and
activity than any among the governed European
countries would be able to show in similar emergen
cies. This is my creed, and I have faith in the
people.
APKIL, 1801.] DIARY. 31
The infamous slavers of the South would even be
honored if named Barbary States of North America.
Before the inauguration, Seward was telling the
diplomats that no disruption will take place ; now
he tells them that it will blow over in from sixty to
ninety days. Docs Seward believe it ? Or does his
imagination or his patriotism carry him away or
astray ? Or, perhaps, he prefers not to look the
danger in the face, and tries to avert the bitter cup.
At any rate, he is incomprehensible, and the more
so when seen at a distance.
Something, nay, even considerable efforts ought to
be made to enlighten the public opinion in Europe,
as on the outside, insurrections, nationalities, etc.,
are favored in Europe. How far the diplomats sent
by the administration are prepared for this task ?
Adams has shown in the last Congress his schol
arly, classical narrow-mindedness. Sanford cannot
favorably impress anybody in Europe, neither in
cabinets, nor in saloons, nor the public at large. He
looks and acts as a commis voyageur, will be consid
ered as such at first sight by everybody, and his
features and manners may not impress others as
being distinguished and high-toned.
Every historical, that is, human event, has its
moral and material character and sides. To ignore,
and still worse to blot out, to reject the moral incen
tives and the moral verdict, is a crime to the public
at large, is a crime towards human reason.
Such action blunts sound feelings and compre
hension, increases the arrogance of the evil-doers.
32 DIARY. [APRIL, 1861.
The moral criterion is absolute and unconditional,
and ought as such unconditionally to be applied to
the events here. Things and actions must be called
by their true names. What is true, noble, pure,
and lofty, is on the side of the North, and permeates
the unnamed millions of the free people ; it ought
to be separated from what is sham, egotism, lie or
assumption. Truth must be told, never mind the
outcry. History has not to produce pieces for the
stage, or to amuse a tea-party.
Regiments pour in ; the Massachusetts men, of
course, leading the van, as in the times of the tea-
party. My admiration for the Yankees is justified
on every step, as is my scorn, my contempt, etc.,
etc., of the Southern chivalrous slaver.
Wrote to Charles Sumner expressing my wonder
at the undecided conduct of the administration ;
at its want of foresight ; its eternal parleying with
Baltimoreans, Virginians, Missourians, etc., and no
step to tread down the head of the young snake.
No one among them seems to have the seer's eye.
The people alone, who arm, who pour in every day
and in large numbers, who transform Washington
into a camp, and who crave for fighting, — the people
alone have the prophetic inspiration, and are the gen
uine statesmen for the emergency.
How will the Congress act ? The Congress will
come here emerging from the innermost of the pop
ular volcano ; but the Congress will be manacled by
formulas ; it will move not in the spirit of the Con
stitution, but in the dry constitutionalism, and the
APIUL, 18G1.J DIARY. 33
Congress will move with difficulty. Still I have
faith, although the Congress never will seize upon
parliamentary omnipotence. Up to to-day, the ad
ministration, instead of boldly crushing, or, at least,
attempting to do it ; instead of striking at the trai
tors, the administration is continually on the look
out where the blows come from, scarcely having
courage to ward them off. The deputations pouring
from the North urge prompt, decided, crushing
action. This thunder-voice of the twenty millions of
freemen ought to nerve this senile, administration.
The Southern leaders do not lose one minute's
time ; they spread the fire, arm, and attack with
all the fury of traitors and criminals.
The Northern merchants roar for the offensive ;
the administration is undecided.
Some individuals, politicians, already speak out
that the slaveocratic privileges are only to be cur
tailed, and slavery preserved as a domestic institu
tion. Not a bit of it. The current and the devel
opment of events will run over the heads of the
pusillanimous and contemptible conservatives. Sla
very must perish, even if the whole North, Lincoln
and Seward at its head, should attempt to save it.
Already they speak of the great results of Fabian
policy ; Seward, I am told, prides in it. Do those
Fabiuses know what they talk about ? Fabius's tac
tics — not policy — had in view not to expose young,
disheartened levies against Hannibal's unconquered
veterans, but further to give time to Rome to restore
her exhausted means, to recover political influences
3
34 DIARY. [APRIL, 1861.
with other Italian independent communities, to re-
conclude broken alliances with the cities, etc. But
is this the condition of the Union ? Your Fabian
policy will cost lives, time, and money ; the people
feels it, and roars for action. Events are great, the
people is great, but the official leaders may turn out
inadequate to both.
What a magnificent chance — scarcely equal in
history — to become a great historical personality,
to tower over future generations. But I do not see
any one pointing out the way. Better so ; the prin
ciple of self-government as the self-acting, self-pre
serving force will be asserted by the total eclipse of
great or even eminent men.
The administration, under the influence of drill
men, tries to form twenty regiments of regulars, and
calls for 45,000 three years' volunteers. What a
curious appreciation of necessity and of numbers
must prevail in the brains of the administration.
Twenty regiments of regulars will be a drop in
water ; will not help anything, but will be sufficient
to poison the public spirit. Citizens and people,
but not regulars, not hirelings, are to fight the
battle of principle. Regulars and their spirit, with
few exceptions, is worse here than were the Yanit-
schars.
When the principle will be saved and victorious,
it will be by the devotion, the spontaneity of the
people, and not by Lincoln, Scott, Seward, or any
of the like. It is said that Seward rules both Lin
coln and Scott. The people, the masses, do not
APIUL, 1861.] DIARY. 35
doubt their ability to crush by one blow the traitors,
but the administration does.
What I hear concerning the Blairs confirms my
high opinion of both. Blair alone in the Cabinet
represents the spirit of the people.
Something seems not right with Scott. Is he too
old, or too much of a Virginian, or a hero on a small
scale ?
If, as they say, the President is guided by Scott's
advice, such advice, to judge from facts, is not poli
tic, not heroic, not thorough, not comprehensive,
and not at all military, that is, not broad and deep,
in the military sense. It will be a pity to be disap
pointed in this national idol.
Scott is against entering Virginia, against taking
Baltimore, against punishing traitors. Strange,
strange !
Diplomats altogether out of their senses ; they
are bewildered by the uprising, by the unanimity,
by the warlike, earnest, unflinching attitude of the
masses of the freemen, of my dear Yankees. The
diplomats have lost the compass. They, duty bound,
were diplomatically obsequious to the power held
so long by the pro-slavery party. They got accus
tomed to the arrogant assumption and impertinence
of the slavers, and, forgetting their European origin,
the diplomats tacitly — but for their common sense
and honor I hope reluctantly — admitted the as
sumptions of the Southern banditti to be in America
the nearest assimilation to the chivalry and nobility
of old Europe. Without taking the cudgel in de-
36 DIARY. [APRIL, 1861.
fence of European nobility, chivalry, and aristocra
cy, it is sacrilegious to compare those infamous
slavers with the old or even with the modern Euro
pean higher classes. In the midst of this slave-
driving, slave-worshipping, and slave-breeding so
ciety of Washington, the diplomats swallowed,
gulped all the Southern lies a*bout the Constitution,
state-rights, the necessity of slavery, and other like
infamies. The question is, how far the diplomats
in their respective official reports transferred these
pro-slavery common-places to their governments.
But, after all, the governments of Europe will not
be thoroughly influenced by the chat of their diplo
mats.
Among all diplomats the English (Lord Lyons)
is the most sphinx ; he is taciturn, reserved, listens
more than he speaks ; the others are more commu
nicative.
What an idea have those Americans of sending a
secret agent to Canada, and what for? England
will find it out, and must be offended. I would not
have committed such an absurdity, even in my palmy
days, when I conspired with Louis Napoleon, sat in
the councils with Godefroi Cavaignac, or wrote in
structions for Mazzini, then only a beginner with
his Giovina Italia, and his miscarried Romarino
attempt in Savoy.
Of what earthly use can be such politique provoca-
trice towards England ? Or is it only to give some
money to a hungry, noisy, and not over-principled
office-seeker ?
MAY, 1861.
The administration tossed by expedients — Seward to Dayton — Spread-
eagleism — One phasis of the American Union finished — The fuss
about llussell — Pressure on the administration increases — Seward,
Wickoff, and the Herald — Lord Lyons menaced with passports — The
splendid Northern army — The administration not up to the occasion
— The new men — Andrew, Wadsworth, Boutwell, Noyes, Wade,
Trumbull, "VValcott, King, Chandler, Wilson — Lyon jumps over for
mulas — Governor Banks needed — Butler takes Baltimore with two
regiments — News from England — The "belligerent" question —
Butler and Scott — Seward and the diplomats ••- " What a Merlin ! " —
" France not bigger than New York! " — Virginia invaded — Murder
of Ellsworth — Harpies at the White House.
RUMORS that the President, the administration, or
whoever has it in his hands, is to take the offensive,
make a demonstration on Virginia and on Balti
more. But these ups and downs, these vacilla
tions, are daily occurrences, and nothing points to
a firm purpose, to a decided policy, or any policy
whatever of the administration. »
A great principle and a great cause cannot be
served and cannot be saved by half measures, and
still less by tricks and by paltry expedients. But
the administration is tossed by expedients. Nothing
is hitherto done, and this denotes a want of any firm
decision.
Mr. Seward's letter to Dayton, a first manifesto to
foreign nations, and the first document of the new
37
38 DIARY. [MAY, 1861.
Minister of Foreign Affairs. It is bold, high-toned,
and American, but it has dark shadows ; shows an
inexperienced hand in diplomacy and in dealing
with events. The passages about the frequent
changes in Europe are unnecessary, and unprovoked
by anything whatever. It is especially offensive to
France, to the French people, and to Louis Napo
leon. It is bosh, but in Europe they will consider
it as une politique provocatrice.
For the present complications, diplomatic relations
ought to be conducted with firmness, with dignity,
but not with an arrogant, offensive assumption, not
in the spirit of spread-eagleism ; no brass, but rea
son and decision.
Americans will find out how absolute are the laws
of history, as stern and as positive as all the other
laws of nature. To me it is clear that one phasis
of American political growth, development, &c., is
gone, is finished. It is the phasis of the Union as
created by the Constitution. This war — war it
will be, and a terrible one, notwithstanding all the
prophecies of Mr. Seward to the contrary — this
war will generate new social and constitutional ne
cessities and new formulas. New conceptions and
new passions will spring up ; in one word, it will
bring forth new social, physical, and moral creations :
so we are in the period of gestation.
Democracy, the true, the noble, that which con
stitutes the signification of America in the progress
of our race — democracy will not be destroyed.
All the inveterate enemies here and in Europe, all
MAY, 1861.] DIARY. 89
who already joyously sing the funeral songs of de
mocracy, all of them Avill become disgraced. Democ
racy will emerge more pure, more powerful, more
rational ; destroyed will be the most infamous oligar
chy ever known in history ; oligarchy issued neither
from the sword, nor the gown, nor the shop, but
wombcd, generated, cemented, and sustained by
traffic in man.
The famous Russell, of the London Times, is what
I always thought him to be — a graphic, imaginative
writer, with power of description of all he sees, but
not the slightest insight in events, in men, in institu
tions. Russell is not able to find out the epidermis
under a shirt. And they make so much fuss about
him ; Seward brings him to the first cabinet dinner
given by the President ; Mrs. Lincoln sends him
bouquets ; and this man, Russell, will heap blunders
upon blunders.
The pressure on the administration for decided,
energetic action increases from all sides. Seldom,
anywhere, an administration receives so many moral
kicks as does this one ; but it seems to stand them
with serenity. Oh, for a clear, firm, well-defined
purpose !
The country, the people demands an attack on
Virginia, on Richmond, and Baltimore ; the country,
better than the military authorities, understands the
political and military necessities ; the people has the
consciousness that if fighting is done instantly, it
will be done cheaply and thoroughly by a move of its
finger. The administration can double the number
40 DIARY. [MAT, 1861.
of men under arms, but hesitates. What slow
coaches, and what ignorance of human nature and
of human events. The knowing ones, the wiseacres,
will be the ruin of this country. They poison the
sound reason of the people.
What the d is Seward with his politicians'
policy ? What can signify his close alliance with
such outlaws as Wikoff and the Herald, and pushing
that sheet to abuse England and Lord Lyons ?
Wikoff is, so to speak, an inmate of Seward's house
and office, and Wikoff declared publicly that the
telegram contained in the Herald, and so violent
against England and Lord Lyons, was written under
Seward's dictation. Wikoff, I am told, showed the
MS. corrected in Seward's handwriting. Lord
Lyons is menaced with passports. Is this man mad ?
Can Seward "for a moment believe that Wikoff knows
Europe, or has any influence ? He may know the
low resorts there. Can Seward be fool enough to
irritate England, and entangle this country ? Even
my anglophobia cannot stand it. Wrote about it
warning letters to New York, to Barney, to Opdyke,
to Wadsworth, &c.
The whole District a great camp ; the best popula
tion from the North in rank and file. More intelli
gence, industry, and all good national and intellect
ual qualities represented in those militia and
volunteer regiments, than in any — not only army,
but society — in Europe. Artisans, mechanics of
all industries, of trade, merchants, bankers, lawyers ;
all pursuits and professions. Glorious, heart-elevat-
MAY, 1861. J DIARY. 41
ing sight ! These regiments want only a small touch
of military organization.
Weeks run, troops increase, and not the first step
made to organize them into an army, to form brig
ades, not to say divisions ; not yet two regiments
manoeuvring together. What a strange idea the
military chief or chiefs, or department, or somebody,
must have of what it is to organize an army. Not
the first letter made. Can it be ignorance of this
elementary knowledge with which is familiar every
corporal in Europe ? When will they start, when
begin to mould an army ?
The administration was not composed for this
emergency, and is not up to it. The government
hesitates, is inexperienced, and will unavoidably
make heaps of mistakes, which may endanger the
cause*, and for which, at any rate, the people is ter
ribly to pay. The loss in men and material will be
very considerable before the administration will get
on the right track. It is painful to think, nay, to be
sure of it. Then the European anti-Union politi
cians and diplomats will credit the disasters to the in
efficiency of self-government. The diplomats, accus
tomed to the rapid, energetic action of a supreme or of
a centralized power, laugh at the trepidation of ours.
But the fault is not in the principle of self-govern
ment, but in the accident which brought to the helm
such an amount of inexperience. Monarchy with a
feeble head is even in a worse predicament. Louis
XV., the Spanish and Neapolitan Bourbons, Gustavus
IV., <fcc., are thereof the historical evidences.
42 DIARY. [MAY, 1831.
May the shock of events bring out new lights from
the people ! One day the administration is to take
the initiative, that is, the offensive, then it recedes
from it. No one understands the organization and
handling of such large bodies. They are to make
their apprenticeship, if only it may not to be too
dearly paid. But they cannot escape the action of
that so positive law in nature, in history, and, above
all, absolute in war.
Wrote to Charles Sumner, suggesting that the ice
magnates send here from Boston ice for hospitals.
The war now waged against the free States is one
made by the most hideous sauvagerie against a most
perfectioned and progressive civilization. History
records not a similar event. It is a hideous phe
nomenon, disgracing our race, and it is so, look on
it from whatever side you will.
A new man from the people, like Governor An
drew, of Massachusetts, acts promptly, decisively ;
feels and speaks ardently, and not as the rhetors.
Andrew is the incarnation of the Massachusetts, nay,
of the genuine American people. I must become
acquainted with Andrew. Thousands of others like
Andrew exist in all the States. Can anybody be a
more noble incarnation of the American people than
J. S. Wadsworth ? I become acquainted with nu
merous men whom I honor as the true American
men. So Boutwell, of Massachusetts, Curtis Noycs,
Senator Wade, Trumbull, Walcott, from Ohio, Sena
tor King, Chandler, and many, many true patriots.
MAT, 1861.] DIARY. 43
Senator Wilson, my old friend, is up to the mark ;
a man of the people, but too mercurial.
Captain or Major Lyon in St. Louis, the first initi
ator or rcvclator of what is the absolute law of neces
sity in questions of national death or life. Lyon
jumped over formulas, over routine, over clumsy
discipline and martinetism, and saved St. Louis and
Missouri.
It is positively asserted that General Scott's first
impression was to court-martial Lyon for this breach
of discipline, for having acted on his own patriotic
responsibility.
Can Scott be such a dricd-up, narrow-minded dis
ciplinarian, and he the Egcria of Lincoln ! Oh ! oh !
Diplomats tell mo that Seward uses the dictatorial
I, speaking of the government. Three cheers for
the new Louis XIV. !
Governor Banks would be excellent for the Intcn-
dant General de V Armee : they call it here General
Quartermaster. Awful disorder and slowness pre
vail in this cardinal branch of the army. Wrote
to Simmer concerning Banks.
Gen. Butler took Baltimore ; did what ought to
have been done a long time ago. Butler did it on
his own responsibility, without orders. Butler acted
upon the same principle as Lyon, and, horrabile
dictUj astonished, terrified the parleying administra
tion. Scott wishes to put Butler under arrest ; hap
pily Lincoln resisted his boss (so Mr. Lincoln called
Scott before a deputation from Baltimore). Scott,
Patterson, and Mansfield made a beautiful stratcgi-
44 D I A K Y. [MAY, 18G1.
cal horror ! They began to speak of strategy ; plan
to approach Baltimore on three different roads, and
with about 35,000 men. Butler did it one morning
with two regiments, and kicked over the senile
strategians in council.
The administration speaks with pride of its for
bearing, that is, parleying, policy. The people, the
country, requires action. Congressus impar Achilli :
Achilles, the people, and Congressus the forbearing
administration.
Music, parades, serenades, receptions, &c., <fec.,
only no genuine military organization. They do it
differently on the other side of the Potomac. There
the leaders are in earnest.
Met Gov. Sprague and asked him when he would
have a brigade ; his answer was, soon ; but this soon
comes very slow.
News from England. Lord John Russell declared
in Parliament that the Queen, or tlie English
government, will recognize the rebels in the condi
tion of " belligerents." 0 England, England ! The
declaration is too hasty. Lord John cannot have
had news of the proclamation of the blockade when
he made that declaration. The blockade could
have served him as an excuse for the haste. Eng
lish aristocracy and government show thus their en
mity to the North, and their partiality to slavers.
What will the anglophiles of Boston say to this ?
Neither England or France, or anybody in Eu
rope, recognized the condition of " belligerents " to
Poles, when we fought in Russia in 1831. Were
MAY, 1831.] DIARY. 45
the Magyars recognized as such in 1848-'49 ? Lord
Palmerston called the German flag hard names
in the war with Denmark for Schleswig-Holstein ;
and now he bows to the flag of slavers and pirates.
If the English statesmen have not some very par
ticular reason for this hasty, uncalled-for condescen
sion to the enemies of humanity, then curse upon
the English government. I recollect that European
powers recognized the Greeks " belligerents " (Aus
tria opposed) in their glorious struggle against the
slavers, the Turks. But then this stretching of
positive, international comity, — this stretching was
done in the interest of freedom, of right, and of hu
manity, against savages and slaughterers. On the
present occasion England did the reverse. 0 Eng
land, England, thou Judas Iscariot of nations !
Seward said to John Jacob Astor, and to a New
York deputation, that this English declaration con
cerning " belligerents " is a mere formality, having
no bearing at all. I told the contrary to Astor and
to others, assuring them that Mr. Seward will
soon find, to the cost of the people and to his own,
how much complication and trouble this mere for
mality will occasion, and occasion it before long. Is
Seward so ignorant of international laws, of general
or special history, or was it only said to throw dust ?
Wrote about the " belligerents " a warning letter
to the President.
Butler, in command of Fortress Monroe, proposes
to land in Virginia and to take Norfolk ; Scott, the
highest military authority in the land, opposes. Has
46 DIARY. [MAY, 1SGI.
Scott used up his energy, his sense, and even his
military judgment in defending Washington before
the inauguration ? He is too old ; his brains, cere
bellum, must be dried up.
Imbecility in a leader is often, nay always, more
dangerous than treason ; the people can find out —
easily, too — treason, but is disarmed against imbe
cility.
What a thoughtlessness to press on Russia the
convention of Paris ? Russia has already a treaty
with America, but in case of a war with England,
the Russian ports on the Pacific, and the only one
accessible to Americans, will be closed to them by
the convention of Paris.
The governors of the States of Ohio, Illinois,
Pennsylvania assure the protection of their respec
tive States to the Union men of the Border States.
What a bitter criticism on the slow, forbearing pol
icy of the administration. Mr. Lincoln seems to be
a rather slow intellect, with slow powers of percep
tion. However, patience ; perhaps the shock of
events will arouse and bring in action now latent,
but good and energetic qualities. As it stands now,
the administration, being the focus of activity, is
tepid, if not cold and slow ; the circumference, that
is, the people, the States, are full of fire and of activ
ity. This condition is altogether the reverse of the
physiological and all other natural laws, and this
may turn out badly, as nature's laws never can be
with impunity reversed or violated.
The diplomats complain that Seward treats them
MAY, 1361.] DIARY. 47
with a certain rudeness ; that he never gives them
time to explain and speak, but interrupts by saying,
" I know it all," etc. If he had knowledge of
things, and of the diplomatic world, he would be
aware that the more firmness he has to use, the
more politeness, even fastidiousness, he is to display.
Scott docs not wish for any bold demonstration,
for any offensive movement. The reason may be,
that he is too old, too crippled, to be able to take
the field in person, and too inflated by conceit to
give the glory of the active command to any other
man. Wrote to Charles Sumner in Boston to stir
up some inventive Yankee to construct a wheel
barrow in which Scott could take the field in person.
In a conversation with So ward, I called his atten
tion to the fact that the government is surrounded
by the finest, most complicated, intense, and well-
spread web of treason that ever was spun ; that
almost all that constitutes society and is in a daily,
nay hourly, contact with the various branches of
the Executive, all this, with soul, mind, and heart
is devoted to the rebels. I observed to him that si
licet exemplis in parvo grandibus uti. Napoleon suf
fered more from the bitter hostility of the fau
bourg St. Germain, than from the armies of the
enemy ; and here it is still worse, as this hostility
runs out into actual, unrelenting treason. To
this Mr. Seward answered with the utmost serenity,
" that before long all this will change ; that when he
became governor of New York, a similar hostility pre
vailed between the two sections' of that State, but
48 DIARY. [MAY, 1861.
soon he pacified everything." What a Merlin !
what a sorcerer !
Some simple-minded persons from the interior of
the State of New York questioned Mr. Seward, in
my presence, about Europe, and " what they will
do there ? " To this, with a voice of the Delphic
oracle, he responded, " that after all France is not
bigger than the State of New York." Is it possible
to say such trash even as a joke ?
Finally, the hesitations of General Scott are over
come. "Virginia's sacred soil is invaded;" Potomac
crossed ; looks like a beginning of activity ; Scott
consented to move on Arlington Heights, but during
two or three days opposed the seizure of Alexandria.
Is that all that he knows of that hateful watchword
— strategy — nausea repeated by every ignoramus
and imbecile ?
Alexandria being a port of entry, and having a
railroad, is more a strategic point for the invasion
of Virginia than are Arlington Heights.
The brave Ellsworth murdered in Alexandria, and
Scott insisted that Alexandria be invaded and occu
pied by night. In all probability, Ellsworth would
not have been murdered if. this villanous nest had
been entered by broad daylight. As if the troops
were committing a crime, or a shameful act ! O
General Scott ! but for you Ellsworth would not
have been murdered.
General McDowell made a plan to seize upon Ma-
nassas as the centre of railroads, the true defence
of Washington, and the firm foothold in Virginia.
MAT, 1861.] D I^A R Y. 49
Nobody, or only few enemies, were in Manassas.
McDowell shows his genuine military insight. Hcott,
and, as- 1 am told, the whole senile military council,
opposed McDowell's plan as being too bold. Do
these mummies intend to conduct a war without
boldness ?
Thick clouds of patriotic, well-intentioned harpies
surround all the issues of the executive doors, win
dows, crevasses, all of them ready to turn an
honest, or rather dishonest, penny out of the father
land. Behind the harpies advance the busy-bodies,
the would-be well-informed, and a promiscuous
crowd Qf well-intentioned do-nothings.
JUNE, 1861.
Butler emancipates slaves — The army not organized — Promenades —
The blockade — Louis Napoleon — Scott all in all — Strategy ! — Gun
contracts — The diplomats — Masked batteries — Seward writes for
"bunkum" — Big Bethel — The Dnyton letter — Instructions to Mr.
Adams.
THE emancipation of slaves is virtually inaugu
rated. Gen. Butler, once a hard pro-slavery Demo
crat, takes the lead. Tempora mutantur et nos, &c.
Butler originated the name of contrabands of war
for slaves faithful to the Union, who abandon their
rebel masters. A logical Yankee mind operates as
an accoucheur to bring that to daylight with which
the events are pregnant.
The enemies of self-government at home and
abroad are untiring in vaticinations that a dictatorship
now, and after the war a strong centralized govern
ment, will be inaugurated. I do not believe it.
Perhaps the riddle to be solved will be, to make a
strong administration without modifying the princi
ple of self-government.
The most glorious difference between Americans
and Europeans is, that in cases of national emergen
cies, every European nation, the Swiss exceptcd, is
called, stimulated to action, to sacrifices, either by a
chief, or by certain families, or by some high-standing
50
JUNE, 1801. DIARY. 51
individual, or by the government ; here the people
forces upon the administration more of all kinds of
sacrifices than the thus called rulers can grasp, and
the people is in every way ahead of the administra
tion.
Notwithstanding that a part of the army crossed
the Potomac, very little genuine organization is
done. They begin only to organize brigades, but
slowly, very slowly. Gen. Scott unyielding in his
opposition to organizing any artillery, of which the
army has very, very little. This man is incompre
hensible. He cannot be a clear-headed general or
organizer, or he cannot be a patriot.
As for the past, single regiments are parading in
honor of the President, of members of the Cabinet,
of married and unmarried ladies, but no military
preparatory exercise of men, regiments, or brigades.
It sickens to witness such incurie.
Mr. Scward promenading the President from regi
ment to regiment, from camp to camp, or rather
showing up the President and himself. Do they be
lieve they can awake enthusiasm for their persons ?
The troops could be better occupied than to serve for
the aim of a promenade for these two distinguished
personalities.
Gen. Scott refuses the formation of volunteer
artillery and of new cavalry regiments, and the
active army, more than 20,000 men, has a very in
sufficient number of batteries, and between 600 and
800 cavalry. Lincoln blindly follows his boss.
Scward, of course, sustains Scott, and confuses Lin-
52 DIARY. [JUNE, I 61.
coin. Lincoln, Scott, Seward and Cameron oppose
offers pouring from the country. To a Mr. M ,
from the State of New York, who demanded permis
sion to form a regiment of cavalry, Mr. Lincoln
angrily answered, that (patriotic) offers give more
" trouble to him and the administration than do the
rebels."
The debates of the English Parliament raise the
ire of the people, nay, exasperate even old fogyish
Anglo-manes.
Persons very familiar with the domestic relations
of Gen. Scott assure me that the vacillations of the
old man, and his dread of a serious warfare, result
from the all-powerful influence on him of one of his
daughters, a rabid secessionist. The old man ought
to be among relics in the Patent office, or sent into a
nursery.
The published correspondence between Lord
Lyons and Lord Russell concerning the blockade
furnishes curious revelations.
When the blockade was to be declared, Mr.
Seward seems to have been a thorough novice in
the whole matter, and in an official interview with
Lord Lyons, Mr. Seward was assisted by his chief
clerk, who was therefore the quintessence of the
wisdom of the foreign affairs, a man not even mas
tering the red-tape traditions of the department,
without any genuine instruction, without ideas.
For this chief clerk, all that he knew of a blockade
was that it was in use during the Mexican war, that
it almost yearly occurred in South American waters,
JUNE, 1861.] DIARY. 53
and every tyro knows there exists such a thing as a
blockade. But that was all that this chief clerk
knew. Lord Lyons asked for some special prece
dents or former acts of the American government.
The chief, and his support, the chief clerk, ignored
the existence of any. Lord Lyons went home and
sent to the department American precedents and
authorities. No Minister of Foreign Affairs in Eu
rope, together with his chief clerk, could ever be
caught in such a flagrante dclicto of ignorance; This
chief clerk made Mr. Scward make unpas de cfc/r,and
this at the start. As Lord Lyons took a great inter
est in the solution of the question of blockade, and
as the chief clerk was the oraculum in this question,
these combined facts may give some clue to the
anonymous advice sent to Lord Lyons, and mention
ed in the month of April.
Suggested to Mr. Seward to at o|ice ^elevate the
American question to a higher region, to represent
it to Europe in its true, holy character, as a question
of right, freedom, and humanity. Then it will be
impossible for England to quibble about technicali
ties of the international laws ; then we can beat
England with her own arms and words, as England
in 1824, <tc., recognized the Greeks as belligerents,
on the plea of aiding freedom and humanity. The
Southern insurrection is a movement similar to that
of the Neapolitan brigands, similar to what parti
sans of the Grand Dukes of Tuscany or Modena
may attempt, similar to any — for argument's sake
— supposed insurrection of any Russian bojars
54 DIARY. [Ju-VB, 1861.
against the emancipating Czar. Not in one from
among the above enumerated cases would England
concede to the insurgents the condition of bellige
rents. If the Deys of Tunis and Tripoli should
attempt to throw off their allegiance to the Sultan
on the plea that the Porte prohibits the slave traffic,
would England hurry to recognize the Deys as
belligerents ?
Suggested to Mr. Seward, what two months ago I
suggested to the President, to put the commercial
interests in the Mediterranean, for a time, under the
protection of Louis Napoleon.
I maintain the right of closing the ports, against
the partisans of blockade. Qui jure suo utitur
neminem Iccdit, says the Roman jurisconsult.
The condition of Lincoln has some similarity with
that of Pio IX. in 1847-48. Plenty of good-will,
but the eagle i» not yet breaking out of the egg.
And as Pio IX. was surrounded by this or that car
dinal, so is Mr. Lincoln by Seward and Scott.
Perhaps it may turn out that Lincoln is honest,
but of not transcendent powers. The war may last
long, and the military spirit generated by the war
may in its turn generate despotic aspirations.
Under Lincoln in the White House, the final victory
will be due to the people alone, and he, Lincoln, will
preserve intact the principle which lifted him to
such a height.
The people is in a state of the healthiest and most
generous fermentation, but it may become soured
JUNE, 1861.] DIARY. 55
and musty by the admixture of Scott-Seward vacil-
latory powders.
Scott is all in all — Minister or Secretary of War
and Commander-in-chief. How absurd to unite
those functions, as they are virtually united here,
Scott deciding all the various military questions ;
he the incarnation of the dusty, obsolete, every
where thrown overboard and rotten routine. They
ought to have for Secretary of War, if not a Car-
not, at least a man of great energy, honesty, of strong
will, and of a thorough devotion to the cause. Sen
ator Wade would be suitable for this duty. Cam
eron is devoted, but I doubt his other capacities for
the emergency, and he has on his shoulders General
Scott as a dead weight.
Charles Stunner, Mr. Motley, Dr. Howe, and
many others, consider it as a triumph that the Eng
lish Cabinet asked Mr. Gregory to postpone his
motion for the recognition of the Southern Confed
eracy. Those gentlemen here are not deep, and are-
satisfied with a few small crumbs thrown them by
the English aristocracy. Generally, the thus-called
better Americans eagerly snap at such crumbs.
It is clear that the English Cabinet wished this
postponement for its own sake. A postponement
spares the necessity to Russells, Palmerstons, Glad
stones, and hoc genus omnc, to show their hands.
Mr. Adams likewise is taken in.
Military organization and strategic points arc the
watchwords. Strategic points, strategy, arc natural
excrescences of brains which thus shamefully con-
56 DIARY. [Jura, 1861.
ceive and carry out what the abused people believe
to be the military organization.
Strategy — strategy repeats now every imbecile,
and military fuss covers its ignorance by that sacra
mental word. Scott cannot have in view the de
struction of the rebels. Not even the Austrian
Aulic Council imagined a strategy combined and
stretching through several thousands of miles.
The people's strategy is best : to rush in masses
on Richmond ; to take it now, when the enemy is
there in comparatively small numbers. . Richmond
taken, Norfolk and the lost guns at once will be
recovered. So speaks the people, and they are
right ; here among the wiseacres not one under
stands the superiority of the people over his own
little brains.
Warned Mr. Seward against making contracts for
arms with all kinds of German agents from .New
York and "from abroad. They will furnish and
bring, at the best, what the German governments
throw out as being of no use at the present moment.
All the German governments are at work to reno
vate their fire-arms.
The diplomats more and more confused, — some
of them ludicrously so. Here, as always and every
where, diplomacy, by its essence, is virtually statu
quo; if not altogether retrograde, is conservative, and
often ultra conservative. It is rare to witness diplo
macy in toto, or even single diplomats, side with pro
gressive efforts and ideas. English diplomacy and
JUNE, 1861.] DIARY. 57
diplomats do it at times ; but then mostly for the
sake of political injrigue.
Even the great events of Italy are not the child
of diplomacy. It went to work clopin, clopan, after
Solferino.
Not one of the diplomats here is intrinsically hos
tile to the Union. Not one really wishes its disrup
tion. Some brag so, but that is for small effect.
All of them are for peace, for statu quo, for the
grandeur of the country (as the greatest consumer
of European imports) ; but most of them would
wish slavery to be preserved, and for this reason
they would have been glad to greet Breckinridge or
Jeff. Davis in the White House.
Some among the diplomats are not virtually ene
mies of freedom and of the North ; but they know
the North from the lies spread by the Southerners,
and by this putrescent heap of refuse, the Washing
ton society. I am the only Northerner on a footing
of intimacy with the diplomats. They consider mo
an exalte.
It must be likewise taken into account, — and
they say so themselves, — that Mr. Seward's oracu
lar vaticinations about tliQ end of the rebellion from
sixty to ninety days confuse the judgment of diplo
mats. Mr. Seward's conversation and words have
an official meaning for the diplomats, are the subject
of their dispatches, and they continually find that
when Mr. Scward says yes the events say no.
Some of the diplomats are Union men out of
obedience to a lawful government, whatever it be ;
58 DIARY. [JUNE, 1861.
others by principle. The few from Central and
South American republics are thoroughly sound.
The diplomats of the great powers, representing
various complicated interests, are the more con
fused, they have so many things to consider. The
diplomatic tail, the smallest, insignificant, fawn to
all, and turn as whirlwinds around the great ones.
Scott continually refused the formation of new
batteries, and now he roars for them, and hurries
the governors to send them. Governor Andrew, of
Massachusetts, weeks ago offered one or two rifled
batteries, was refused, and now Scott in all hurry
asks for them.
The unhappy affair of Big Bethel gave a shock to
the nation, and stirred up old Scott, or rather the
President.
Aside of strategy, there is a new bugbear to
frighten the soldiers ; this bugbear is the masked
batteries. The inexperience of commanders at Big
Bethel makes already masked batteries a terror of
the country. The stupid press resounds the absurd
ity. Now everybody begins to believe that the whole
of Virginia is covered with masked batteries, consti
tuting, so to speak, a subterranean artillery, which is
to explode on every step, under the feet of our army.
It seems that this error and humbug is rather wel
come to Scott, otherwise he would explain to the
nation and to the army that the existence of nu
merous masked batteries is an absolute material
and military impossibility. The terror prevailing
now may do great mischief.
JUKE, 1861.] DIARY. 59
Mr. Seward was obliged to explain, exonerate,
expostulate, and neutralize before the French Cabi
net his famous Dayton letter. I was sure it was to
come to this ; Mr. Thouvcnel politely protested,
and Mr. Seward confessed that it was written for
the American market (alias, for bunkum). All this
will make a very unfavorable impression upon Euro
pean diplomats concerning Mr. Scward's diplomacy
and statesmanship, as undoubtedly Mr. Thouvenel
will semiofficially confidentially communicate Mr.
Scward's faux pas to his colleagues.
Mr. Seward emphatically instructs Mr. Adams to
exclude the question of slavery from all his sayings
and doings as Minister to England. Just to Eng
land ! That Mr. Adams, once the leader of the
constitutional anti-slavery party, submits to this
obeisance of a corporal, I am not astonished, as
everything can be expected from the man who, in
support of the compromise, made a speech de lana
caprina; but Senator Sumner, Chairman of the
Committee of Foreign Affairs, meekly swallowed it.
JULY, 1861.
The Evening Post— The message— The administration caught napping
— McDowell — Congress slowly feels its way — Seward's great facil
ity of labor — Not a Know-Nothing — Prophesies a speedy end — Car
ried away by his imagination — Says "secession is over" — Hopeful
views — Politeness of the State department — Scott carries on the
campaign from his sleeping room— Bull Run — Rout — Panic — " Mal
ediction! Malediction!" — Not a manly word in Congress! — Abuse
of the soldiers — McClellan sent for — Young blood — Gen. Wads-
worth— Poor McDowell! — Scott responsible — Plan of reorganiza
tion — Let McClellan beware of routine.
IT seems to me that the destinies of this admirable
people are in strange hands. Mr. Lincoln, honest
man of nature, perhaps an empiric, doctoring with
innocent juices from herbs ; but some others around
him seem to be quacks of the first order. I wish I
may be mistaken.
The press, the thus called good one, is vacillat
ing. * Best of all, and almost not vacillating, is
the New York Evening Post. I do not speak of
principles ; but the papers vacillate, speaking of
the measures and the slowness of the administra
tion.
The President's message ; plenty of good, honest
intentions ; simple, unaffected wording, but a con-
fessio^n that by the attack on Sumpter, and the upris
ing of Virginia, the administration was, so to speak,
60
JULY, 1861.1 DIARY. 61
caught napping. Further, up to that day the ad
ministration did not take any, the slightest, measure
of any kind for any emergency ; in a word, that it
expected no attacks, no war, saw no fire, and did
not prepare to meet and quench one.
It were, perhaps, better for Lincoln if he could
muster courage and act by himself according to
his nature, rather than follow so many, or even
any single adviser. Less and less I understand
Mr. Lincoln, but as his private secretary assures me
that Lincoln has great judgment and great energy,
I suggested to the secretary to say to Lincoln he
should be more himself.
Being tcte-a-tcte with McDowell, I saw him do
things of details which in any, even half-way organ
ized army, belong to the speciality of a chief of the
staff. I, of course, wondered at it. McDowell, who
commands what in Europe would be called a large
corps, told me that General Scott allowed him not
to form a complete staff, such a one as he, McDow
ell, wished.
And all this, so to speak, on the eve of a battle,
when the army faces the enemy. It seems that gen
uine staff duties are something altogether unknown
to the military senility of the army. McDowell
received this corps in the most chaotic state. Almost
with his own hands he organized, or rather put to
gether, the artillery. Brigades are scarcely formed ;
the commanders of brigades do not know their com
mands, and the soldiers do not know their generals
62 DIARY. [JULY, 1861.
— and still they consider Scott to be a great gen
eral !
The Congress, well-intentioned, but entangled in
formulas, slowly feels its way. The Congress is
coniposed of better elements than is the administra
tion, and it is ludicrous to see how the administra
tion takes airs of hauteur with the Congress. This
Congress is in an abnormal condition for the task of
directing a revolution ; a formula can be thrown in
its face almost at every bold step. The administra
tion is virtually irresponsible, more so than the gov
ernment of any constitutional nation whatever.
What great things this administration could carry
out ! Congress will consecrate, legalize, sanction
everything. Perhaps no harm would have resulted
if the Senate and the House had contained some
new, fresher elements directly from the boiling, pop
ular cauldron. Such men would take a position at
once. Many of the leaders in both Houses were
accustomed for many years to make only opposition.
But a long opposition influences and disorganizes
the judgment, forms not those genuine statesmen
able to grasp great events. For such emergencies
as are now here, terrible energy is needed, and only
a very perfect mind resists the enervating influence
of a protracted opposition.
Suggested to Mr. Seward that the best diplomacy
was to take possession of Virginia. Doing this, we
will find all the cabinets smooth and friendly.
I seldom saw a man with greater facility of labor
than Seward. When once he is at work, it runs
JULY, 1861.] DIARY. 63
torrent-like from his pen. His mind is elastio. His
principal forte is argument on any given case. But
the question is how far he masters the variegated
information so necessary in a statesman, and the
more now, when the country earnestly has such
dangerous questions with European cabinets. He is
still cheerful, hopeful, and prophesies a speedy end.
Scward has no Know-Nothingism about him. He
is easy, and may have many genuine generous traits
in his character, were they not compressed by the
habits of the, not lofty, politician. At present,
Scward is a moral dictator ; he has Lincoln in his
hand, and is all in all. Very likely he flatters him
and imposes upon his simple mind by his over-bold,
dogmatic, but not over-correct and logical, generali
zations. Seward's finger is in all the other depart
ments, but above all in the army.
The opposition made to Seward is not courageous,
not open, not dignified. Such an opposition betrays
the weakness of the opposcrs, and does not inspire
respect. It is darkly surreptitious. These oppo
nents call Seward hard names, but do this in a
corner, although most of them have their parlia
mentary chair wherefrom they can speak. If he
is bad and mischievous, then unite your forces and
overthrow him ; if he is not bad, or if you are not
strong enough against him, do not cover yourself
with ridicule, making a show of impotent malice.
When the Senate confirmed him, every one through
out the land knew his vacillating policy ; knew him
to be for compromise, for concessions ; knew that
64 DIARY. [JULY, 1861.
lie disbelieved in the terrible earnestness of the
struggle, and always prophesied its verj speedy end.
The Senate confirmed Seward with open eyes. Per
haps at the start his imagination and his patriotism
made him doubt and disbelieve in the enormity of
treason — he could not realize that the traitors would
go to the bitter end. Seemingly, Seward still hopes
that one day or another they may return as forlorn
sheep. Under the like impressions, he always be
lieved, and perhaps still believes, he shall be able to
patch up the quarrel, and be the savior of the Union.
Very probably his imagination, his ardent wishes,
carry him away, and confuse that clear insight into
events which alone constitutes the statesman.
Suggested to Sumner to demand the reduction of
the tariff on certain merchandises, on the plea of
fraternity of the working American people with their
brethren the operatives all over Europe ; by it
principally I wished to alleviate the condition of
French industry, as I have full confidence in Louis
Napoleon, and in the unsophisticated judgment of
the genuine French people. The suggestion did
not take with the Senate.
When the July telegraph brought the news of the
victory at Romney (Western Virginia), it was
about midnight. Mr. Seward warmly congratulated
the President that " the secession was over" What
a far-reaching policy !
When the struggle will be over, England, at least
her Tories, aristocrats, and politicians, will find
themselves baffled in their ardent wishes for the
JULY, 1861.] DIARY. 65
breaking of the Union. The free States will look
tidy and nice, as in the past. But more than one
generation will pass before ceases to bleed the wound
inflicted by the lies, the taunts, the vituperations,
poured in England upon this noble, generous, and
high-minded people ; upon the sacred cause de
fended by the freemen.
These .freemen of America, up to the present
time, incarnate the loftiest principle in the succes
sive, progressive, and historical development of man.
Nations, communities, societies, institutions, stand
and fall with that principle, whatever it be, whereof
they are the incarnation ; so teaches us history.
Woe to these freemen if they will recede from the
principle ; if they abandon human rights ; if they
do not crush human bondage, this sum of all in
famies. Certainly the question paramount to all is,
to save and preserve pure self-government in prin
ciple and in its direct application. But although
the question of slavery seems to be incidental and
subordinate to the former, virtually the question of
slavery is twin to the former. Slavery serves as a
basis, as a nurse, for the most infamous and abject
aristocracy or oligarchy that was ever built up in
history, and any, even the best, the mildest, and the
most honest oligarchy or aristocracy kills and de
stroys man and self-government.
From the purely administrative point of view,
the principle whose incarnation is the American
people, the principle begins to be perverted. The
embodiment of self-government fills dungeons, sup-
66 DIARY. [Jui/i;1861.
presses personal liberty, opens letters, and in the
reckless saturnalias of despotism it rivals many from
among the European despots. Europe, which does
not see well the causes, shudders at this delirium
tremens of despotism in America.
Certainly, treason being in ebullition, the holders
of power could not stand by and look. But instead
of an energetic, action, instead of exercising in full
the existing laws, they hesitated, and treason, em
boldened, grew over their heads.
The law inflicted the severest capital punishment
on the chiefs of the revolt in Baltimore, but all went
off unharmed. The administration one day willing
ly allows the law to slide from its lap, and the next
moment grasps at an unnecessary arbitrary power.
Had the traitors of Baltimore been tried by court-
martial, as the law allowed, and punished, few, if
any, traitors would then have raised their heads in
the North.
Englishmen forget that even after a secession,
the North, to-day twenty millions, as large as the
whole Union eight years ago, will in ten years be
thirty millions ; a population rich, industrious, and
hating England with fury.
Seward, having complete hold of the President,
weakens Lincoln's mind by using it up in hunting
after comparatively paltry expedients. Se ward-
Scott's influence neutralizes the energetic cry of
the country, of the congressmen, and in the Cabinet
that of Blair, who is still a trump.
The emancipation of slaves is spoken of as an
JULY, 1861.] DIARY. 67
expedient, but not as a sacred duty, even for the
maintenance of the Union. To emancipate through
the war power is an offence to reason, logic, and
humanity ; but better even so than not at all. War
power is in its nature violent, transient, established
for a day ; emancipation is the highest social and
economical solution to be given by law and reason,
and ought to result from a thorough and mature
deliberation. When the Constitution was framed,
slavery was ashamed of itself, stood in the corner,
had no paws. Now-a-days, slavery has become a
traitor, is arrogant, blood-thirsty, worse than a
jackal and a hyena ; deliberately slavery is a matri
cide. And they still talk of slavery as sheltered by
the Constitution; and many once anti-slavery men
like Seward, etc., are ready to preserve it, to com
promise with the crime.
The existence of nations oscillates between epochs
when the substance and when the form prevails.
The formation of America was the epoch when sub
stance prevailed. Afterward, for more than half a
century, the form was paramount ; the term of
substance again begins. The Constitution is sub
stance and form. The substance in it is peren
nial ; but every form is transient, and must be ex
panded, changed, re-cast.
Few, if any, Americans are aware of the identity
of laws ruling the universe with laws ruling and
prevailing in the historical development of man.
Rarely has an American patience enough to ascend
the long chain from effect to cause, until he reaches
68 DIARY. [JULY, 1861.
the first cause, the womb wherein was first genera
ted the subsequent distant effect. So, likewise, they
cannot realize that at the start the imperceptible
deviation from the aim by and by widens to a bot
tomless gap until the aim is missed. Then the
greatest and the most devoted sacrifices are useless.
The legal conductors of the nation, since March 6th,
ignore this law.
The foreign ministers here in Washington were
astonished at the politeness, when some time ago the
Department sent to the foreign ministers a circular
announcing to them that armed vessels of the neu
trals will be allowed to enter at pleasure the rebel
blockaded ports. This favor was not asked, not
hoped for, and was not necessary. It was too late
when I called the attention of the Department to
the fact that such favors were very seldom granted ;
that they arc dangerous, and can occasion compli
cations. I observed that during the war between
Mexico and France, in 1838, Count Mole, Minister
of Foreign Affairs, and the Premier of Louis Phil
ippe, instructed the admiral commanding the French
navy in the Mexican waters, to oppose, even by
force, any attempt made by a neutral man-of-war to
enter a blockaded port. And it was not so danger
ous then as it may be in this civil war. But the
chief clerk adviser of the Department found out
that President Polk's administration during the Mex
ican war granted a similar permission, and, glad to
have a precedent, his powerful brains could not find
out the difference between then and now.
JULY, 1861.] DIARY. 69
, The internal routine of the ministry, and the
manner in which oiir ministers are treated abroad
by the Chief at home, is very strange, humiliating
to our agents in the eyes of foreign Cabinets. Cas-
sius Clay was instructed to propose to Russia our
accession to the convention of Paris, but was not
informed from Washington that our ministers at
Paris, London, etc., were to make the same propo
sitions. When Prince Gortschakoff asked Cassius
Clay if similar propositions were made to the other
cosigners of the Paris convention, our minister was
obliged to confess his utter ignorance about the
whole proceeding. Prince Gortschakoff good-na
turedly inquired about it from his ministers at Paris
and London, and enlightened Cassius Clay.
No ministry of foreign affairs in Europe would
treat its agents in such a trifling manner, and, if
done, a minister would resent it.
This mistake, or recklessness, is to be credited
principally to the internal chief, or director of the
department, and not to the minister himself. By
and by, the chief clerks, these routinists in the for
mer coarse traditions of the Democratic administra
tions, will learn and acquire better diplomatic and
bureaucratic habits.
If one calls the attention of influential Americans
to the mismanagement in the organization of the
army ; to the extraordinary way in which everything,
as organization of brigades, and the inner service,
the quartermaster's duty, is done, the general and
inevitable answer is, " We are not military ; we are
70 DIARY. JULV, 1861.
young people ; we have to learn. " Granted ; but
instead of learning from the best, the latest, and
most correct authorities, why stick to an obsolete,
senile, musty, rotten, mean, and now-a-days imprac
ticable routine, which is all-powerful in all re
lating to the army and to the war ? The Ameri
cans may pay dear for thus reversing the rules of
common sense.
General Scott directs from his sleeping room the
movements of the two armies on the Potomac and
in the Shenandoah valley. General Scott has given
the order to advance. At least a strange way, to
have the command of battle at a distance of thirty
and one hundred miles, and stretched on his fau-
teuil. Marshal de Saxe, although deadly sick, was
on the field at Fontenoy. What will be the result
of this experimentalization, so contrary to sound
reason ?
Fighting at Bull Run. One o'clock, P. M. Good
news. Gen. Scott says that although we were 40-100
in disadvantage, nevertheless his plans are successful
— all goes as he arranged it — all as he foresaw it.
Bravo ! old man ! If so, I make amende honorable
of all that I said up to this minute. Two o'clock,
p. M. General Scott, satisfied with the justness and
success of his strategy and tactics — takes a hap.
Evening. Battle lost ; rout, panic. The army
almost disbanded, in full run. So say the forerun
ners of the accursed news. Malediction 1 Maledic
tion !
What a horrible night and day ! rain and cold ;
JULY, 1861.] DIARY. 71
stragglers and disbanded soldiers in every direction,
and no order, nobody to gather the soldiers, or to
take care of them.
As if there existed not any military or adminis
trative authority in Washington ! Under the eyes
of the two commanders-in-chief ! Oh, senility, im
becility, ignominy ! In Europe, a commander of a
city, or any other military authority whatever, who
should behave in such a way, would be dismissed,
nay, expelled, from military service. What I can
gather is, that the enemy was in full retreat in the
centre and on one flank, when he was reinforced by
fresh troops, who outflanked and turned ours. If
so, the panic can be explained. Even old veteran
troops generally run when they are outflanked.
Johnston, whom Patterson permitted to slip, came
to the rescue of Beauregard. So they say. It is
en petit Waterloo, with Blucher-Johnston, and Grou
chy-Patterson. But had Napoleon's power survived
after Waterloo, Grouchy, his chief of the staff, and
even Ney,* for the fault at Quatre-bras, would have
been court-martialed and shot. Here these blind
Americans will thank Scott and Patterson.
Others say that a bold charge of cavalry arrived
on our rear, and threw in disorder the wagons and
the baggage gang. That is nothing new ; at the
battle of Borodino some Cossacks, pouncing upon
the French baggage, created a panic, which for a
* That such would have been the presumed fate of Xey at the hands of
Napoleon, I was afterwards assured by the old Duke of Bassauo, and by
the Duchess Abrantes.
72 DIARY. JULY, 1861.
moment staggered Napoleon, and prevented him in
time from reinforcing Ney and Davoust. But Mc
Dowell committed a fault in putting his baggage
train, the ambulances excepted, on a road between
the army and its reserves, which, in such a manner,
came not in action. By and by I shall learn more
about it.
The Congress has made a worse Bull Run than
the soldiers. Not a single manly, heroic word
to the nation and the army. As if unsuccess
always was dishonor. This body groped its way,
and was morally stunned by the blow ; the would-be
leaders more than the mass.
Suggested to Sumner to make, as the Romans
did, a few stirring words on account of the defeat.
Some mean fellows in Congress, who never smelt
powder, abused the soldiers. Those fellows would
have been the first to run. Others, still worse, to
show their abject flunkeyism to Scott, and to hum
bug the public at large about their intimacy with
this fetish, make speeches in his defence. Scott
broadly prepared the defeat, and now, through the
mouths of flunkeys and spit-lickers,* he attempts to
throw the fault on the thus called politicians.
The President telegraphed for McClellan, who in
* Foremost among them was the editor of the New York Times, pub
lishing a long article wherein he proved that he had been admitted to
General Scott's table, and that the General unfolded to him, the editor,
the great anaconda strategy. Exactly the thing to be admired and gulped,
by a man of such variegated information as that individual.
That little villianish " article " had a second object : it was to filch sub
scribers from the Tribune, which broke down, not over courageously.
JULY, 1861.] D I A R T. 73
the West, showed rapidity of movement, the first and
most necessary capacity for a commander. Young
blood will be infused, and perhaps senility will be
thrown overboard, or sent to the Museum of the
Smithsonian Institute.
At Bull Run the foreign regiments ran not, but
covered the retreat. And Scott, and worse than he,
Thomas, this black spot in the War Department, both
are averse to, and when they can they humiliate, the
foreigners.. A member of Congress, in search of a
friend, went for several miles up the stream of the
fugitive army ; great was his astonishment to hear
spoken by the fugitives only the unmixed, pure
Anglo-Saxon.
My friend, J. Wadsworth, behaved cool, brave, on
the field, and was devoted to the wounded. Now,
as always, he is the splendid type of a true man of
the people.
Poor, unhappy McDowell! During the days
when he prepared the army, he was well aware that
an eventual success would be altogether attributed
to Scott ; but that he, McDowell, would be the
scapegoat for the defeat. Already, when on Sunday
morning the news of the first successes was known,
Scott swallowed incense, and took the whole credit
of it to himself. Now he accuses the politicians.
Once more. Scott himself prepared the defeat.
Subsequent elucidation will justify this assertion.
One thing is already certain : one of the reasons of
the lost battle is the exhaustion of troops which
fought — and the number here in Washington is
74 DIARY. [JULY, 1861.
more than 50,000 men. Only an imbecile would
divide the forces in such a way as to throw half of it
to attack a superior and entrenched enemy. But
Scott wished to shape the great events of the coun
try in accordance with his narrow, ossified brains,
and with his peculiar patriotism; and he did the
same in the conduct of the war.
I am sure some day or other it will come out that
this immense fortification of Manassas is a similar
humbug to the masked batteries ; and Scott was the
first to aggrandize these terrible national nightmares.
Already many soldiers say that they did not see any
fortifications. Very likely only small earthworks ;
if so, Scott ought to have known what was the posi
tion and the works of an enemy encamped about
thirty miles from him. If he, Scott, was ignorant,
then it shows his utter imbecility ; if he knew that
the fortifications were insignificant, and did not tell
it to the troops, then he is worse than an incapable
chief. Up to the present day, all the military
leaders of ancient and modern times told their troops
before a battle that the enemy is not much after all,
and that the difficulties to overcome are rather
insignificant. After the battle was won, everything
became aggrandized. Here everybody, beginning
with Scott, ardently rivalled how to scare and
frighten the volunteers, by stories of the masked
batteries of Manassas, with its several tiers of fortifi
cations, the terrible superiority of the Southerners,
etc., etc. In Europe such behavior would be called
treason.
JULY, 1861.] D I A R Y. 75
The administration and the influential men can
not realize that they must give up their old, stupid,
musty routine. McClellan ought to be altogether
independent of Scott ; be untranimcllcd in his activi
ty ; have large powers ; have direct action ; and not
refer to Scott. What is this wheel within a wheel ?
Instead of it, Scott, as by concession, cuts for
McClellan a military department of six square
miles. Oh, human stupidity, how difficult thou art
to lift !
Scott will paralyze McClellan as he did Lyon and
Butler. Scott always pushed on his spit-lickcrs,
or favorites, rotten by old age. But Scott has
pushed aside such men as Wool and Col. Smith ;
refused the services of many brave as Hooker and
others, because they never belonged to his flunkeys.
Send to McClellan a plan for the reorganization
of the army.
1st. True mastership consists in creating an army
with extant elements, and not in clamoring for
what is altogether impossible to obtain.
2d. The idea is preposterous to try to have a
large thus-called regular army. A small number,
fifteen to twenty thousand men, divided among sev
eral hundreds of thousands of volunteers, would be
as a drop of water in a lake. Besides, this war is
to be decided by the great masses of the volunteers,
and it is uncivic and unpatriotic to in any way
nourish the wickedly-assumed discrimination be
tween regulars and volunteers.
3d. Good non-commissioned officers and corpo-
76 DIARY. [JULY, 1861.
rals constitute the sole, sound, and easy articulations
of a regiment. Any one who ever was in action is
aware of this truth. With good non-commissioned
officers, even ignorant lieutenants do very little
harm. The volunteer regiments ought to have as
many good sergeants and corporals as possible.
4th. To provide for this want, and for reasons
mentioned above, the relics of the regular army
ought to be dissolved. Let us have one army, as
the enemy has.
5th. All the rank and file of the army ought to
be made at once corporals and sergeants, and be dis
tributed as much as possible among the volunteers.
6th. The non-commissioned regulars ought to be
made commissioned officers, and with officers of all
grades be distributed and merged in the one great
army.
For the first time since the armaments, I enjoyed
a genuine military view. McClellan, surrounded
as a general ought to be, went to see the army. It
looks martial. The city, likewise, has a more mar
tial look than it had all the time under Scott. It
seems that a young, strong hand holds the ribbons.
God grant that McClellan may preserve his western
vigor and activity, and may not become softened and
dissolved by these Washington evaporations. If he
does, if he follows the routine, he will become as im
potent as others before him. Young man, beware of
Washington's corrupt but flattering influences. To
the camp ! to the camp ! A tent is better for you
than a handsome house. The tent, the fumes of
JULY, 1861.] DIARY. 77
bivouacs, inspired the Fredericks, the Napoleons,
and Washingtons.
Up to this day they make more history in Scces-
sia than here. Jeff'. Davis overshadows Lincoln.
Jeff. Davis and his gang of malefactors are pushed
into the whirlpool of action by the nature of their
crime ; here, our leaders dread action, and grope.
The rebels have a clear, decisive, almost palpable
aim •; but here * *
AUGUST, 1861.
The truth about Bull Run— The press staggers — The Blairs alone firm
— Scott's military character — Seward — Mr. Lincoln reads the Her
ald — The ubiquitous lobbyist — Intervention. — Congress adjourns —
The administration waits for something to turn up — Wade — Lyonis
killed — Russell and his shadow — The Yankees take the loan — Bra
vo, Yankees! — McClellan works hard — Prince Napoleon — Manas-
sas fortifications a humbug — Mr. Seward improves — Old Whigism —
McClellan's powers enlarged— Jeff. Davis makes history — Fremont
emancipates in Missouri — The Cabinet.
THE truth about Bull Run will, perhaps, only
reach the people when it becomes reduced to an
historical use. I gather what I am sure is true.
About three weeks ago General McDowell took
upon himself the responsibility to attack the enemy
concentrated at Manassas. Deciding upon this
step," McDowell showed the determination of a true
soldier, and a cool, intelligent courage. Accord
ing to rumors permeating the whole North ; rumors
originated by secessionists in and around Washing
ton, and in various parts of the free States ; rumors
gulped by a part of the press, and never contra
dicted, but rather nursed, at headquarters, Manas
sas was a terrible, unknown, mysterious something ;
a bugbear, between a fortress made by art and a
natural fastness, whose approaches were defended
for miles by numberless masked batteries, and which
78
AUGUST, 1861.] DIARY. 79
was filled by countless thousands of the most fero
cious warriors. Such was Manassas in public opin
ion when McDowell undertook to attack this for
midable American Torres Vedras, and this with the
scanty and almost unorganized means in men and
artillery allotted to him by the senile wisdom of
General Scett. General McDowell obtained the
promise that Beauregard alone was to be before
him. To fulfil this promise, General Scott was to
order Patterson to keep Johnston, and a movement
was to be made 011 the James River, so as to pre
vent troops coming from Richmond to Manassas.
As it was already said, Patterson, a special favorite
of General Scott, kindly allowed Johnston to save
Beauregard, and Jeff. Davis with troops from Rich,
mond likewise was on the spot. McDowell planned
his plan very skilfully ; no European general would
have done better, and I am sure that such will be
the verdict hereafter. Some second-rate mistakes in
the execution did not virtually endanger its suc
cess ; but, to say the truth, McDowell and his army
were defeated by the imbecility of the supreme
military authority. Imbecility stabbed them in the
back.
One part of th* press, stultified and stupefied,
staggered under the blow; the other part showed
its utter degradation by fawning on Scott and at
tacking the Congress, or its best part. The Even
ing Post staggered not ; its editors are genuine, la
borious students, and, above all, students of history.
The editors of the other papers arc politicians ;
80 DIARY. [AUGUST, 1861.
some of them are little, others are big villains.
All, intellectually, belong to the class called in
America more or less well-read men ; information
acquired by reading, but which in itself is not
much.
The Brothers Blair, almost alone, receded not, and
put the defeat where it belonged — at. the feet of
General Scott.
The rudis indigestaque moles, torn away from
Scott's hands, already begins to acquire the shape
of an army. Thanks to the youth, the vigor, and
the activity of McClellan.
General Scott throws the whole disaster on poli
ticians, and abuses them. How ungrateful. His
too lofty pedestal is almost exclusively the work of
politicians. I heard very, very few military men in
America consider Scott a man of transcendent mili
tary capacity. Years ago, during the Crimean
campaign, I spent some time at West Point in the
society of Cols. Robert Lee, Walker, Hardee, then
in the service of the United States, and now trai
tors; not one of them classed Scott much higher
above what would be called a respectable capacity ;
and of which, as they said, there are many, many in
every European army. *
If one analyzes the Mexican campaign, it will be
found that General Scott had, comparatively, more
officers than soldiers ; the officers young men, full
of vigor, and in the first gush of youth, who there
fore mightily facilitated the task of the commander.
Their names resound to-day in both the camps.
AUGUST, 1861.] DIARY. 81
Further, generals from the campaign in Mexico
assert that three of the won battles were fought
against orders, which signifies that in Mexico youth
had the best of cautious senility. It was accord
ing to the law of nature, and for it it was crowned
with success.
Mr. Seward has a very active intellect, an excel
lent man for current business, easy and clear-headed
for solving any second-rate complications ; but as
for his initiative, that is another question. Hith
erto his initiative does not tell, but rather confuses.
Then 'ho sustains Scott, some say, for future politi
cal capital. If so it is bad ; worse still if Mr. Sew
ard sustains Scott on the ground of high military
fitness, as it is impossible to admit that Mr. Seward
knows anything about military affairs, or that he
ever studied the description of any battle. At least,
I so judge from his conversation.
Mr. Lincoln has already the 'fumes of greatness,
and looks down on the press, reads no paper, that
dirty traitor the New York Herald excepted. So, at
least, it is generally stated.
The enemies of Seward maintain that he, Seward,
drilled Lincoln into it, to make himself more ne
cessary.
Early, even before the inauguration, McDowell
suggested to General Scott to concentrate in Wash
ington the small army, the depots scattered in Texas
and New Mexico. Scott refused, and this is called
a general ! God preserve any cause, any people
82 DIARY. [AUGUST, 1861.
who have for a savior a Scott, together with his civil
and military partisans.
If it is not direct, naked treason which prevails
among the nurses, and the various advisers of the
people, imbecility, narrow-mindedness, do the same
work. • Further, the way in which many leech, phle
botomize, cheat and steal the people's treasury, is
even worse than rampant treason. I heard a Boston
shipbuilder complain to Sumner that the ubiquitous
lobbyist, Thurlow Weed, was in his, the builder's,
way concerning some contracts to be made in the
Navy Department, etc., etc. Will it turn out that
the same men who are to-day at the head of affairs
will be the men who shall bring to an end this re
volt or revolution ? It ought not to be, as it is
contrary to logic, and to human events.
Lincoln alone must forcibly remain, he being one
of the incarnated formulas of the Constitution, en
dowed with a specific, four years' lasting existence.
The Americans are nervous about foreign inter
vention. It is difficult to make them understand
that no intervention is to be, and none can be made.
Therein the press is as silly as the public at large.
Certainly France does not intend any meddling or
intervention ; of this I am sure. Neither does Eng
land seriously.
Next, if these two powers should even thirst for
such an injustice, they have no means to do it. If
they break our blockades, we make war, and ex
clude them from the Northern ports, whose com
merce is more valuable to them than that of the
AUGUST, 1861.] DIARY. 83
South. I do not believe the foreign powers to be
forgetful of their interest ; they know better their
interests than the Americans.
The Congress adjourned, abandoning, with a con
fidence unparalleled in history, the affairs of the
country in the hands of the not over far-sighted ad
ministration. The majority of the Congress arc
good, and fully and nobly represent the pure, clear
and sure aspirations, instincts, nay, the clear-sighted
ness of the people. In the Senate, as in the House,
arc many, very many true men, and men of pure
devotion, and of clear insight into the events ; men
superior to the administration ; such are, above all,
those senators and representatives who do not at
tempt or aim to sit on a pedestal before the public,
before the people, but wish the thing to be done for
the thing itself. But for the formula which chains
their hands, feet, and intellect, the Congress con
tained several men who, if they could act, would
finish the secession in a double-quick time. But
the whole people move in the treadmill of formulas.
•It is a pity that they are not inspired by the axiom
of the Roman legist, scire leges non est hoc verba
ear-urn tenere, sed vim ac potestatem. Congress had
positive notions of what ought to be done ; the ad
ministration, Micawber-like, looks for that something
which may turn up, and by expedients patches all
from day to day.
What may turn up nobody can foresee ; matter
alone without mind cannot carry the day. The
people have the mind, but the official legal leaders
84 DIARY. [AUGUST, 1861.
a very small portion of it. Come what will, I shall
not break down ; I shall not give up the holy prin
ciple. If crime, rebellion, sauvagerie, triumph, it
will be, not because the people failed, but it will be
because mediocrities were at the helm. Concessions,
compromises, any patched-up peace, will for a cen
tury degrade the name of America. Of course, I
cannot prevent it ; but events have often broken
but not bent me. I may be burned, but I cannot
be melted ; so if secesh succeeds, I throw in a cess
pool my document of naturalization, and shall re
turn to Europe, even if working my passage.
It is maddening to read all this ignoble clap-trap,
written by European wiseacres concerning this coun
try. Not one knows the people, not one knows the
accidental agencies which neutralize what is grand
and devoted in the people.
Some are praised here as statesmen and leaders.
A statesman, a leader of such a people as are the
Americans, and in such emergencies, must be a man
in the fullest and loftiest comprehension. All the
noblest criteria of moral and intellectual manhood
ought to be vigorously and harmoniously developed
in him. He ought to have a deep and lively moral
sense, and the moral perception of events and of men
around him. He ought to have large brains and a
big heart, — an almost all-embracing comprehension
of the inside and outside of events, — and when lie
has those qualities, then only the genius of foresight
will dwell on his brow. He ought to forget himself
wholly and unconditionally ; his reason, his heart,
AUGUST, 1861. j DIARY. 85
his soul ought to merge in the principles which
lifted him to the elevated station. Who around me
approaches this ideal ? So far as I know, perhaps
Senator Wade.
I wait and wait for the eagle which may break
out from the White House. Even the burning* fire
of the national disaster at Bull Run left the egg
unhatched. Utinam sim falsus, but it looks as if
the slowest brains were,to deal with the greatest
events of our epoch. Mr. Lincoln is a pure-souled,
well-intentioned patriot, and this nobody doubts or
contests. But is that all which is needed in these
terrible emergencies ?
Lyon is killed, — the only man of initiative "hith
erto generated by events. We have bad luck. I
shall put on mourning for at least six weeks. They
ought to weep all over the land for the loss of such
a man ; and he would not have been lost if the ad
ministration had put him long ago in command of
the West. 0 General Scott ! Lyon's death can be
credited to you. Lyon was obnoxious to General
Scott, but the General's influence maintains in the
service all the doubtful capacities and characters.
The War Department, as says Potter, bristles with
secessionists, and with them the old, rotten, respec
table relics, preserved by General Scott, depress and
nip in the bud all the young, patriotic, and genuine
capacities.
As the sea corrodes the rocks against which it im
pinges, so egotism, narrow-mindedness, and irnmo-
86 DIARY. AUGUST, 1861.
rality corrode the best human institutions. For hu
manity's sake, Americans, beware !
Always the clouds of harpies around the White
House and the Departments, — such a generous fer
ment in the people, and such impurities coming to
the surface !
Patronage is the stumbling stone here to true
political action. By patronage the Cabinet keeps
in check Congressmen, Senators, etc.
I learn from very good authority that when Eus-
sell, with his shadow, Sam. Ward, went South, Mr.
Seward told Ward that he, Seward, intends not to
force^the Union on the Southern people, if it should
be positively ascertained that that people does not
wish to live in the Union ! I am sorry for Seward.
Such is not the feeling of the Northern people, and
such notions must necessarily confuse and make
vacillating Mr. Se ward's — that is, Mr. Lincoln's —
policy. Seward's patriotism and patriotic wishes
and expectations prevent him from seeing things
as they are.
The money men of Boston decided the conclusion
of the first national loan. Bravo, my beloved Yan
kees! In finances as in war, as in all, not the
financiering capacity of this or that individual, not
any special masterly measures, etc., but the stern
will of the people to succeed, provides funds and
means, prevents bankruptcy, etc. The men who
give money send an agent here to ascertain how
many traitors are still kept in offices, and what are
AUGUST, 1861.] DIARY. 87
the prospects of energetic action by the administra
tion.
McClellan is organizing, working hard. It is a
pleasure to see him, so devoted and so young. Af
ter all, youth is promise. But already adulation
begins, and may spoil him. It would be very, very
saddening.
Prince Napoleon's visit stirs up all the stupidity
of politicians in Europe and here. "What a mass of
absurdities are written on it in Europe, and even by
Americans residing there. All this is more than
equalled by the solemn and wise speculations of the
Americans at home. Bar-room and coffee-house poli
ticians are the same all over the world, the same, I
am sure, in China and Japan. To suppose Prince
Napoleon has any appetite whatever for any kind of
American crown ! Bah ! He is brilliant and intel
ligent, and to suppose him to have such absurd
plans is to offend him. But human and American
gullibility are bottomless.
The Prince is a noble friend of the American
cause, and freely speaks out his predilection. His
sentiments are those of a true Frenchman, and not
the sickly free-trade pro-slaveryism of Baroche with
which he poisoned here the diplomatic atmosphere.
Prince Napoleon's example will purify it.
As I was sure of it, the great Manassas fortifica
tions are a humbug. It is scarcely a half-way forti
fied camp. So say the companions of the Prince,
who, with him, visited Beauregard's army. So
88 DIARY. [AUGUST, 1861.
much for the great Gen. Scott, whom the companions
of the Prince call a magnificent ruin.
The Prince spoke with Beaurcgard, and the
Prince's and his companions' opinion is, that Mc
Dowell planned well his attack, but failed in the
execution ; and Beauregard thought the same. The
Prince saw McClellan, and does not prize him so
high as we do. These foreign officers say that most
probably, on both sides, the officers will make most
correct plans, as do pupils in military schools, but
the execution will depend upon accident.
Mr. Seward shows every day more and more capa
city in dispatching the regular, current, diplomatical
business affairs. In all such matters he is now at
home, as if he had done it for years and years. He
is no more spread-eagle in his diplomatic relations ;
is easy and prompt in all secondary questions relat
ing to secondary interests, and daily emerging from
international complications.
Hitherto the war policy of the administration, as
inspired and directed by Scott, was rather to receive
blows, and then to try to ward them off. I expect
young McClellan to deal blows, and thus to up
turn the Micawber policy. Perhaps Gen. Scott be
lieved that his name and example would awe the
rebels, and that they would come back after having
made a little fuss and done some little mischief.
But Scott's greatness was principally built up by the
Whigs, and his hold on Democrats was not very
great. Witness the events of Polk's and Pierce's
administrations. His Mississippi- Atlantic strategy is
AUGUST, 1861.] DIARY. 89
a delirium of a softening brain. Reward's enemies
say that he puts up and sustains Scott, because in
the case of success Scott will not be in Seward's
way for the future Presidency. Mr. Lincoln, an
old Whig, has the Whig-worship for Scott ; and as
Mr. Lincoln, in 1851, stumped for Scott, the candi
date for the Presidency, the many eulogies showered
by Lincoln upon Scott still more strengthened the
worship which, of course, Seward lively entertains
in Lincoln's bosom. Thus the relics of Whigism
direct now the*destinies of the North. Mr. Lincoln,
Gen. Scott, Mr. Seward, form a triad, with satellites
like Bates and Smith in the Cabinet. But the
Whigs have not the reputation of governmental
vigor, decision, and promptitude.
The vitiated impulse and direction given by Gen.
Scott at the start, still prevails, and it will be very
difficult to bring it on the right track — to change
the general as well as the war policy from the
defensive, as it is now, to the offensive, as it ought to
have been from the beginning. The North is five to
one in men, and one hundred to one in material
resources. Any one with brains and energy could
suppress the rebellion in eight weeks from to-day.
Mr. Lincoln in some way has a slender historical
resemblance to Louis XVI. — similar goodness, hon
esty, good intentions ; but the size of events seems to
be too much for him.
And so now Mr. Lincoln is wholly overshadowed
by Seward. If by miracle the revolt may end in a
short time, Mr. Seward will have most of the credit
90 DIARY. [AUGUST, 1861.
for it. In the long run the blame for eventual dis
asters will be put at Mr. Lincoln's door.
Thank heaven ! the area for action and the
powers of McClellan are extended and increased.
The administration seems to understand the exigen
cies of the day.
I am told that the patriotic and brave Senator
Wade, disgusted with the slowness and inanity of
the administration, exclaimed, " I do not wonder
that people desert to Jeff. Davis, as he shows brains ;
I may desert myself." And truly, Jeff. Davis and
his gang make history.
Young McClellan seems to falter before the Medu-
sBrruin Scott, who is again at his tricks, and refuses
officers to volunteers. To carry through in Wash
ington any sensible scheme, more boldness is needed
than on the bloodiest battle-field.
If Gen. Scott could have disappeared from the
stage of events on the sixth of March, his name
would have remained surrounded with that halo to
which the people was accustomed ; but now, when
the smoke will blow over, it may turn differently.
I am afraid that at some future time will be applied
to Scott * * * quia turpe ducunt parere minoribus,
et quce imberbi didiccrc, senes perdenda fateri.
Not self-government is on trial, and not the gen
uine principle of democracy. It is not the genuine,
virtual democracy which conspired against the re
public, and which rebels, but an unprincipled, infa
mous oligarchy, risen in arms to destroy democracy.
From Athens down to to-day, true democracies
AUGUST, 1801.] DIARY. 91
never betrayed any country, never leagued them
selves with enemies. From the time of Hellas down
to to-day, all over the world, and in all epochs, royal-
tics, oligarchies, aristocracies, conspired against,
betrayed, and sold their respective father-lands. (I
said this years ago in America and Europe.)
Fremont as initiator ; he emancipates the slaves
of the disloyal Missourians. Takes the advance,
but is justified in it by the slowness, nay, by the
stagnancy of the administration.
Gen. Scott opposed to the expedition to Hatte^
ras !
If it be true that Seward and Chase already lay
the tracks for the Presidential succession, then I can
only admire their short-sightedness, nay, utter and
darkest blindness. The terrible events will be a
schooling for the people ; the future President will
not be a schemer already shuffling the cards ; most
probably it will be a man who serves the . country,
forgetting himself.
Only two members in the Cabinet drive together,
Blair and "Welles, and both on the right side, both
true men, impatient for action, action. Every day
shows on what false principle this Cabinet was con
structed, not for the emergency, not in view to sup
press the rebellion, but to satisfy various party
wranglings. Now the people's cause sticks in the
mud.
SEPTEMBER, 1861.
What will McClellan do ? — Fremont disavowed — The Blairs not in
fault — Fremont ignorant and a bungler — Conspiracy to destroy him
— Se ward rather on his side— McClellan's staff — A Marcy will not
do ! — McClellan publishes a slave-catching order — The people move
onward — Mr. Seward again — West Point — The Washington de
fences — What a Russian officer thought of them— • Oh, for battles ! —
Fremont wishes to attack Memphis ; a bold move ! — Seward's influ
ence over Lincoln — The people for Fremont — Col. Romanoff's opin
ion of the generals — McClellan refuses to move — Manojuvrings —
The people uneasy — The staff— The Orleans — Brave boys! — The
Potomac closed — Oh, poor nation.! — Mexico — McClellan and Scott.
WILL McClellan display unity in conception, and
vigor in execution? That is the question. He
seems very energetic and active in organizing the
army ; but he ought to take the field very soon.
He ought to leave Washington, and have his head
quarters in the camp among the soldiers. The life
in the tent will inspire him. It alone inspired Fred
erick II. and Napoleon. Too much organization
may become as mischievous as the no organization
under Scott. Time, time is everything. The levies
will fight well ; may only McClellan not be carried
away by the notion and the attempt to create what
is called a perfect army on European pattern. Such
an attempt would be ruinous to the cause. It is
altogether impossible to create such an army on the
European model, and no necessity exists for it. The
92
SEPTEMBER 1861. ] DIARY. 93
rebel army is no European one. Civil wars have
altogether different military exigencies, and the
great tactics for a civil war are wholly different from
the tactics, etc., needed in a regular war. Napo
leon differently fought the Vendeans, and different
ly the Austrians, and the other coalesced armies.
May only McClellan not become intoxicated before
he puts the cup to his lips.
Fremont disavowed by Lincoln and the adminis
tration. This looks bad. I have no considerable
confidence in Fremont's high capacities, and believe
that his head is turned a little ; but in this question
he was right in principle, and right in legality. A
commander of an army operating separately has the
exercise of full powers of war.
The Blairs are not to be accused ; I read the let
ter from F. Blair to his brother. It is the letter of
a patriot, but not of an intriguer. Fremont estab
lishes an absurd rule concerning the breach of mili
tary discipline, and shows by it his ignorance and
narrow-mindedness. So Fremont, and other bung
ling martinets, assert that nobody has the right to
criticise the actions of his commander.
Fremont is ignorant of history, and those around
him who put in his head such absurd notions are a
pack of mean and servile spit-lickers. An officer
ought to obey orders without hesitation, and if he
does not he is to be court-martialed and shot. But
it is perfectly allowable to criticise them ; it is in
human nature — it was, is, and will be done in all
armies ; see in Curtius and other historians of Alex-
94 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1861.
ander of Macedon. It was continually done under
Napoleon. In Russia, in 1812, the criticism made
by almost all the officers forced Alexander I. to
leave the army, and to put Kutousoff over Barclay.
In the last Italian campaign Austrian officers criti
cised loudly Giulay, their commander, etc., etc.
Conspiracy to destroy Fremont on account of his
slave proclamation. The conspirators are the Mis
souri slave-holders : Senator Brodhead, old Bates,
Scott, McClellanj and their staffs. Some jealousy
against him in the Cabinet, but Seward rather on
Fremont's side.
McClellan makes his father-in-law, a man of very
secondary capacity, the chief of the staff of the
army. It seems that McClellan ignores what a
highly responsible" position it is, and what a special
and transcendent capacity must be that of a chief
of the staff — the more so when of an army of sev
eral hundreds of thousands. I do not look for a
Berthier, a Gneisenau, a Diebitsch, or Gortschakoff,
but a Marcy will not do.
Colonel Lebedeef, from the staff of the Emperor
Alexander II., and professor in the School of the
Staff at St. Petersburg, saw here everything, spoke
with our generals, and his conclusion is that in mil
itary capacity McDowell is by far superior to Mc
Clellan. Strange, if true, and foreboding no good.
Mr. Lincoln begins to call a demagogue any one
who does not admire all the doings of his administra
tion. Arc we already so far ?
McClellan under fatal influences of the rampant
SEPTEMBER, 1361.] DIARY. 95
pro-slavery men, and of partisans of the South, as
is a Barlow. All the former associations of McClel-
lan have been of the worst kind — Breckinridgians.
But perhaps he will throw them off. He is young,
and the elevation of his position, his standing before
the civilized world, will inspire and purify him, I
hope. Nay, I ardently wish he may go to the camp,
to the camp.
McClcllan published a slave-catching order. Oh
that he may discard those bad men around him !
Struggles with evils, above all with domestic, in
ternal evils, absorb a great part of every nation's
life. Such struggles constitute its development,
are the landmarks of its progress and decline.
The like struggles deserve more the attention of
the observer, the philosopher, than all kinds of ex
ternal wars. And, besides, most of such external
wars result from the internal condition of a nation.
At any rate, their success or unsuccess almost
wholly depends upon its capacity to overcome inter
nal evils. A nation even under a despotic rule may
overcome and repel an invasion, as long as the strug
gle against the internal evils has not broken the
harmony between the ruler and the nation. Here
the internal evil has torn a part of the constitutional
structure ; may only the necessary harmony between
this high-minded people and the representative of
the transient constitutional formula not be destroyed.
The people move onward, the formula vacillates, and
seems to fear to make any bold step.
If the causo of the freemen of the North sue-
96 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1861.
cumbs, then humanity is humiliated. This high-
spirited exclamation belongs to Tassara, the Minis
ter from Spain. Not the diplomat, but the nobly
inspired man uttered it.
But for the authoritative influence of General
Scott, and the absence of any foresight and energy
on the part of the administration, the rebels would
be almost wholly without military leaders, without
naval officers. The Johnsons, Magruders, Tatnalls,
Buchanans, ought to have been arrested for treason
the moment they announced their intention to
resign.
Mr. Seward has many excellent personal quali
ties, besides his unquestionable eminent capacity* for
business and argument ; but why is he neutralizing
so much good in him by the passion to be all in all,
to meddle with everything, to play the knowing one
in military affairs, he being in all such matters as
innocent as a lamb ? It is not a field on which Sew-
ard's hazarded generalizations can be of any earthly
use ; but they must confuse all.
Seward is free from that coarse, semi-barbarous
know-nothingism which rules paramount, not the
genuine people, but* the would-be something, the
half-civilized gentlemen. Above all, know-nothing-
inm pervades all around Scott, who is himself its
grand master, and it nestles there par excellence in
more than one way. It is, however, to be seen how
far this pure American-Scott military wisdom is
something real, transcendent. Up to this day, the
pure Americanism, West Point schoolboy's conceit,
SEPTEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 97
have not produced much. The defences of Wash
ington, so much clarioncd as being the product of a
high conception and of engineering skill, — these
defences are very questionable when appreciated by
a genuine military eye. A Russian officer of the
military engineers, one who was in the Crimea
and at Scbastopol, after having surveyed these de
fences here, told me that the Russian soldiers who
defended Sebastopol, and who learned what ought
to be defences, would prefer to fight outside than
inside of the Washington forts, bastions, defences,
etc., etc., etc.
Doubtless many foreigners coming to this country
are not much, but the greatest number are soldiers
who saw service and fire, and could be of some use
at the side of Scott's West Point greenness and pre
sumption.
If we arc worsted, then the fate of the men of
faith in principles will be that of Sisyphus, and the
coming generation for half a century will have up
hill work.
If not McClellan himself, some intriguers around
him already dream, nay, even attempt to form a pure
military, that is, a reckless, unprincipled, unpatri
otic party. These men foment the irritation be
tween the arrogance of the thus-called regular
army, and the pure abnegation of the volunteers.
Oh, for battles ! Oh, for battles !
Fremont wished at once to attack Fort Pillow and
the city of Memphis. It was a bold move, but the
concerted civil and military wisdom grouped around
98 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1861.
the President opposed this truly great military con
ception.
Mr. Lincoln is pulled in all directions. His in
tentions are excellent, and he would have made an
excellent President for quiet times. But this civil
war imperatively demands a man of foresight, of
prompt decision, of Jacksonian will and energy.
.These qualities may be latent in Lin.com, but do not
yet come to daylight. Mr. Lincoln has no experi
ence of men and events, and no knowledge of the
past. Seward's influence over Lincoln may be ex
plained by the fact that Lincoln considers Seward
as the alpha and omega of every kind of knowledge
and information.
I still hope, perhaps against hope, that if Lincoln
is what the masses believe him to be, a strong mind,
then all may come out well. Strong minds, lifted by
events into elevated regions, expand more and more ;
their " mind's eye " pierces through clouds, and even
through rocks ; they become inspired, and inspira
tion compensates the deficiency or want of informa
tion acquired by studies. "Weak minds, when trans
ported into higher regions, become confused and
dizzy. Which of the two will be Mr. Lincoln's
fate?
The administration hesitates to give to the strug
gle a character of emancipation ; but the people
hesitate not, and take Fremont to their heart.
As the concrete humanity, so single nations have
epochs of gestation, and epochs of normal activity,
SEPTEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 99
of growth, of full life, of manhood. Americans are
now in the stage of manhood.
Col. Romanoff, of the Russian military engineer
corps, who was in the Crimean war, saw here the
men and the army, saw and conversed with the
generals. Col. R. is of opinion that McDowell is
by far superior to McClellan, and would make a
better commander.
It is said that McClellan refuses to move until he
has an army of 800,000 men and 600 guns. Has
he not studied Napoleon's wars ? Napoleon scarcely
ever had half such a number in hand ; and when at
Wagram, where he had about 180,000 men, himself
in the centre, Davoust and Massena on the flanks,
nevertheless the handling of such a mass was too
heavy even for his, Napoleon's, genius.
The country is — to use an Americanism — in a
pretty fix, if this McClellan turns out to be a mistake.
I hope for the best. GOO guns ! But 100 guns in a
line cover a mile. What will he do with GOO ? Lose
them in forests, marshes, and bad roads ; whence it
is unhappily a fact that McClellan read only a little
of military history, misunderstood what he read,
and now attempts to realize hallucinations, as a boy
attempts to imitate the exploits of an Orlando. It
is dreadful to think of it. I prefer to trust his
assertion that, once Organized, he soon, very soon,
will deal heavy and quick blows to the rebels.
I saw some manoeuvrings, and am astonished that
no artillery is distributed among the regiments of
infantry. When the rank and file see the guns on
100 DIARY. f SEPTEMBER, 1861.
their side, the soldiers consider them as a part of
themselves and of the regiment ; they fight better
in the company of guns ; they stand by them and
defend them as they defend their colors. Such a
distribution of guns would strengthen the body of
the volunteers. But it seems that McClellan has
no confidence in the volunteers. Were this true,
it would denote a small, very small mind. Let us
hope it is not so. One of his generals — a martinet
of the first class — told me that McClellan waits for
the organization of the regulars, to have them for
the defence of the guns. If so, it is sheer nonsense.
These narrow-minded West Point martinets will
become the ruin of McClellan.
McClellan could now take the field. Oh, why has
he established his headquarters in the city, among
flunkeys, wiseacres, and spit-lickers ? Were he
among the troops, he would be already in Manassas.
The people are uneasy and fretting about this inac
tion, and the people see what is right and necessary.
Gen. Banks, a true and devoted patriot, is sacri
ficed by the stupidity of what they call here the
staff of the great army, but which collectively, with
its chief, is only a mass of conceit and ignorance —
few, as General Williams, excepted. Banks is in
the face of the enemy, and has no cavalry and no
artillery ; and here are immense reviews to amuse
women and fools.
Mr. Mercier, the French Minister, visited a consid
erable part of the free States, and his opinions are
SEPTEMBER, 1861.] DIARY'. l(5i
now more clear and firm; above all, he is very
friendly to our side. He is sagacious and good.
Missouri is in great confusion — three parts of it
lost. Fremont is not to be accused of all the mis
chief, but, from effect to cause, the accusation as
cends to General Scott.
Gen. Scott insisted to have Gen. Harney appointed
to the command of Missouri, and hated Lyon. If,
even after Harncy's recall, Lyon had been appointed,
Lyon would be alive and Missouri safe. But hatred,
anxiety of rank, and stupidity, united their efforts,
and prevailed. Oh American people ! to depend
upon such inveterate blunderers !
Were McClellan in the camp, he would have no
flatterers, no antechambers filled with flunkeys ;
but the rebels would not so easily get news of his
plans as they did in the affair on Munson's Hill.
The Orleans are here. I warned the government
against admitting the Count de Paris, saying that it
would be a deliberate breach of good comity towards
Louis Napoleon, and towards the Bonapartes, who
prove to be our friends; I told that no European
government would commit itself in such a manner,
not even if connected by ties of blood with the Or
leans. At the start, Mr. Seward heeded a little my
advice, but finally he could not resist the vanity to
display untimely spread-eagleism, and the Orleans
are in our service. Brave boys ! It is a noble,
generous, high-minded, if not an altogether wise,
action.
If a mind is not nobly inspired and strong, then
1.02 D I A K Y. [SEPTEMBER 1861.
the exercise of power makes it crotchety and dissim-
ulative in contact with men. To my disgust, I wit
ness this all around me.
The American people, its institutions, the Union
— all have lost their virginity, their political inno
cence. A revolution in the institutions, in the mode
of life, in notions begun — it is going on, will grow
and mature, either for good or evil. Civil war, this
most terrible but most maturing passion, has put an
end to the boyhood and to the youth of the Ameri
can people. Whatever may be the end, one thing
is sure — that the substance and the form will be
modified; nay, perhaps, both wholly changed. A
new generation of citizens will grow and come out
from this smoke of the civil war.
The Potomac closed by the rebels ! Mischief and
shame ! Natural fruits of the dilatory war policy
— Scott's fault. Months ago the navy wished to
prevent it, to shell out the rebels, to keep our troops
in the principal positions. Scott opposed ; and still
he has almost paramount influence. McClellan
complains against Scott, and Lincoln and Seward
flatter McClellan, but look up to Scott as to a super
natural military wisdom. Oh, poor nation !
In Europe clouds gather over Mexico. Whatever
it eventually may come to, I suggested to Mr. Scw-
ard to lay aside the Monroe doctrine, not to meddle
for or against Mexico, but to earnestly protest
against any eventual European interference in the
internal condition of the political institutions of
Mexico.
SEPTEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 103
Continual secondary, international complications,
naturally growing out from the maritime question ;
so with the Dutch cheesemongers, with Spain, with
England — all easily to be settled ; they generate
fuss and trouble, but will make no fire.
Gen. Scott's partisans complain that McClellan
is very disrespectful in his dealings with Gen. Scott.
I wonder not. McClellan is probably hampered by
the narrow routine notions of Scott. McClellan
feels that Scott prevents energetic and prompt ac
tion ; that he, McClellan, in every step is obliged to
fight Gen. Scott's inertia ; aiid McClellan grows im
patient, and shows it to Scott.
OCTOBER, 1861.
Experiments on the people's life-blood — McClellan's uniform — The
army fit to move — The rebels treat us like children — We lose time
— Everything is defensive — The starvation theory — The anaconda
— First interview with McClellan — Impressions of him — His dis
trust of the volunteers — Not a Napoleon nor a Garibaldi — Mason
and Slidcll — Scward admonishes Adams — Fremont goes overboard
— The pro-slavery party triumph — The collateral missions to Europe
— Peace impossible — Every Southern gentleman is a pirate — When
will we deal blows ? — Inertia ! inertia !
As in the mediaeval epoch, and some time there
after, anatomists and physiologists experimented on
the living villeins, that is, on peasantry, serfs, and
called this process experientia in anima vili, so this
naive administration experiments in civil and in
military matters on the people's life-blood.
McClellan, stirred up by the fools and peacocks
around him, has sent to the War Department a
project of a showy uniform for himself and his staff.
It would be to laugh at, if it were* not insane.- Mc
Clellan very likely read not what he signed.
The army is in sufficient rig and organization to
take the field ; but nevertheless McClellan has not
yet made a single movement imperatively prescribed
by the simplest tactics, and by the simplest common
sense, when the enemy is in front. Not a single
serious reconnoissance to ascertain the real force
104
OCTOBER, 1861.] DIARY. 105
of the' enemy, to pierce through the curtain behind
which the rebels hide their real forces. It must be
conceded to the rebel generals that they show great
skill in humbugging us. Whenever we try to make
a step we are met by a seemingly strong force (ten
fold increased by rumors spread by the secessionists
among us, and gulped by our stupidity), which
makes us suppose a deep front, and a still deeper
body behind. And there is the humbug, I am sure.
If, on such an extensive line as the rebels occupy,
the main body should correspond to what they show
in front, then the rebel force must muster several
hundreds of thousands. Such large numbers they
have not, and I am sure that four-fifths of their
whole force constitutes their vanguard, and behind
it the main body is chaff. The rebels treat us as if
we were children.
McClellan fortifies Washington ; Fremont, St.
Louis ; Anderson asks for engineers to fortify some
spots in Kentucky. This is all a defensive warfare,
and not so will the rebel region be conquered.
We lose time, and time serves the rebels, as it in
creases their moral force. Every day of their exist
ence shows their intrinsic vitality.
The theory of starving the rebels out is got up
by imbeciles, wholly ignorant x>f such matters;
wholly ignorant of human nature ; wholly ignorant
of the degree of energy, and of abnegation, which
criminals can display when firmly decided upon
their purpose. This absurdity comes from the
celebrated anaconda Mississippi- Atlantic strategy.
106 DIARY. [OCTO.JER, 1861.
Oh ! When in Poland, in 1831, the military chiefs
concentrated all the forces in the fortifications of
Warsaw, all was gone. Oh for a dashing gene
ral, for a dashing purpose, in the councils of the
"White House ! The constitutional advisers are deaf
to the voice of the people, who know more about it
than do all the departments and the military wise
acres. The people look up to find as big brains and
hearts as are theirs, and hitherto the people have
looked up in vain. The radical senators, as a King,
a Trumbull, a Wade, Wilson, Chandler, Hale, etc.,
the true Republicans in the last session of Congress
— further, men as Wadsworth and the like, are the
true exponents of the character, of the clear insight,
of the soundness of the people.
McClellan, and even the administration, seem not
to realize that pure military considerations cannot
fulfil the imperative demands of the political situa
tion.
October 6th. — I met McClellan ; had with him a
protracted conversation, and could look well into
him. I do not attach any value to physiognomies,
and consider phrenology, craniology, and their kin
dred, to be rather humbugs ; but, nevertheless, I
was struck with the soft, insignificant inexpressive-
ness of his eyes and features. My enthusiasm for
him, my faith, is wholly extinct. All that he said
to me and to others present was altogether unmili-
tary and inexperienced. It made me sick at heart
to hear him, and to think that he is to decide over
the destinies and the blood of the people. And he
OCTOBER, 1861.] DIARY. 107
already an idol, incensed, worshipped, before he did
anything whatever. McClellan may have individual
courage, so has almost every animal ; but he has
not the decision and the courage of a military
leader and captain. He has no real confidence in
the troops ; has scarcely any idea how battles are
fought ; has no confidence in and no notion of the
use of the bayonet. I told him that, notwithstand
ing his opinion, I would take his worst brigade of
infantry, and after a fortnight's drill challenge and
whip any of the best rebel brigades.
Some time ago it was reported that McClellan con
sidered this war had become a duel of artillery.
Fools wondered and applauded. I then protested
against putting such an absurdity in McClellan's
mouth ; now I must believe it. To be sure, every
battle is in part a duel of artillery, but ends or is
decided by charges of infantry or cavalry. Can
nonading alone never constituted and decided a
battle. No position can be taken by cannonading
alone, and shells alone do not always force an ene
my to abandon a position. Napoleon, an artillerist
par excellence, considered campaigns and battles to
be something more than duels of artillery. The
great battle of Borodino, and all others, were de
cided when batteries were stormed and taken. Ey-
lau was a battle of charges by cavalry and by infan
try, besides a terrible cannonading, etc., etc. Mc
Clellan spoke with pride of the fortifications of
Washington, and pointed to one of the forts as
having a greater profile than had the world-renowned
108 DIARY. [OCTOBER 1861.
Malakoff. What a confusion of notions, what a
misappreciation of relative conditions !
I cannot express my sad, mournful feelings, dur
ing this conversation with McClellan. We spoke
about the necessity of dividing his large army into
corps. McClellan took from the table an Army
Almanac, and pointed to the names of generals
to whom he intended to give the command of corps.
He feels the urgency of the case, and said that Gen.
Scott prevented him from doing it ; but as soon as
he, McClellan, shall be free to act, the division will
be made. So General Scott is everywhere to defend
senile routine against progress, and the experience
of modern times.
The rebels deserve, to the end of time, many
curses from outraged humanity. By their treason
they forced upon the free institutions of the North
the necessity of curtailing personal liberty and other
rights ; to make use of depotism for the sake of self-
defence.
• The enemy concentrates and shortens his lines,
and McClellan dares not even tread on the enemy's
heels. Instead of forcing the enemy to do what we
want, and upturn his schemes, McClellan seemingly
does the bidding of Beaurcgard. We advance as
much as Beauregard allows us to do. New tactics,
to be sure, but at any rate not Napoleonic.
The fighting in the West and some small successes
here are obtained by rough levies ; and those im
becile, regular martinets surrounding McClellan
still nurse his distrust in the volunteers. All the
OCTOBER, 1861.] DIARY. 109
wealth, energy, intellect of the country, is concen
trated in the hands of McClcllan, and he uses it to
throw up entrenchments. The partisans of Mc-
Clellan point to his highly scientific preparations —
his science. He may have some little of it, hut half-
science is worse than thorough ignorance. Oh ! for
one dare-devil in the Lyon, or in the old-fashioned
Yankee style. McClellan is neither a Napoleon,
nor a Cabrera, nor a Garibaldi.
Mason and Slidcll escaped to Havana on their
way to Europe, as commissioners of the rebels.
According to all international definitions, we have
the full right to seize them in any neutral vessel,
they being political contrabands of war going on a
publicly avowed errand hostile to their true gov
ernment. Mason and Slidcll are not common
passengers, nor are they political refugees invoking
the protection of any neutral flag. They arc travel
ling commissioners of war, of bloodshed and rebel
lion ; and it is all the same in whatever seaport they
embark. And if the vessel conveying them goes
from America to Europe, or vice versa, Mr. Seward
can let them be seized when they have left Havana,
provided he finds it expedient.
We lose time, and time is all in favor of the
rebels. Every day consolidates their existence — so
to speak, crystallizes them. Further — many so-
called Union men in the South, who, at the start,
opposed secession, by and by will get accustomed to
it. Secession daily takes deeper root, and will so by
degrees become un fait accompli.
110 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1861.
Mr. Adams, in his official relations with the Eng
lish government, speaks of the rebel pirates as of
lawful privateers. Mr. Seward admonished him for
it. Bravo !
It is so difficult, not to say impossible, to meet an
American who concatenates a long series of effects
and causes, or who understands that to explain an
isolated fact or phenomenon the chain must be
ascended and a general law invoked. Could they
do it, various bunglings would be avoided, and
much of the people's sacrifices husbanded, instead of
being squandered, as it is done now.
Fremont going overboard ! His fall will be the
triumph of the pro-slavery party, headed by the New
York Herald, and supported by military old fogies,
by martinets, and by double and triple political and
intellectual know-nothings. Pity that Fremont had
no brilliant military capacity. Then his fall could
not have taken place.
Mr. Seward is too much ruled by his imagination,
and too hastily discounts the future. But imagina
tion ruins a statesman. Mr. Seward must lose
credit at home and abroad for having prophesied,
and having his prophecies end in smoke. When Hat-
teras was taken (Gen. Scott protested against the
expedition), Mr. S. assured me that it was the begin
ning of the end. A diplomat here made the obser
vation that no minister of a European parliamentary
government could remain in power after having
been continually contradicted by facts.
Now, Mr. Seward devised these collateral mis-
OCTOBER, 1861.] DIARY. Ill
sions to Europe. He very little knows the habii and
temper of European cabinets if he believes that such
collateral confidential agents can do any good. The
European cabinets distrust such irresponsible agents,
who, in their turn, weaken the influence and the
standing of the genuine diplomatic agents. Mr. S.,
early in the year, boasted to abolish, even in Europe,
the system of passports, and soon afterwards intro
duced it at home. So his imagination carries him
to overhaul the world. He proposes to European
powers a united expedition to Japan, and we cannot
prevent at home the running of the blockade, and
are ourselves blockaded on the Potomac. All such
schemes are offsprings of an ambitious imagination.
But the. worst is, that every such outburst of his
imagination Mr. Seward at once transforms into a
dogma, and spreads it with all his might. I pity
him when I look towards the end of his political
career. He writes well, and has put down the inso
lent English dispatch concerning the habeas corpus
and the arrests of dubious, if not treacherous, Eng
lishmen. Perhaps Seward imagines himself to be
a Cardinal Richelieu, with Lincoln for Louis XIII.
(provided he knows as much history), or may be he
has the ambition to be considered a Talleyrand or
Mctternich of diplomacy. But if any, he has some
very, very faint similarity with Alberoni. He easily
outwits here men around him ; most are politicians
as he ; but he never can outwit the statesmen of
Europe. Besides, diplomacy, above all that of great
112 DIARY. [OCTOBEB, 1881.
powers, is conceived largely and carried on a grand
scale ; the present diplomacy has outgrown what is
commonly called (but fallaciously) Talleyrandism
and Metternichism.
McClellan and the party which fears to make a
bold advance on the enemy make so much fuss
about the country being cut up and wooded ; it
proves only that they have no brains and no fertility
of expedients. This country is not more cut up
than is the Caucasus, and the woods are no great,
endless, primitive forests. They are rather groves.
In the Caucasus the Russians continually attack
great and dense forests ; they fire in them several
round shots, then grape, and then storm them with
the bayonet ; and the Circassians are no worse sol
diers than are the Southrons.
European papers talk much of mediation, of a
peaceful arrangement, of compromise. By intuition
of the future the Northern people know very well
the utter impossibility of such an arrangement. A
peace could not stand ; any such peace will estab
lish the military superiority of the arrogant, reck
less, piratical South. The South would teem with
hundreds of thousands of men ready for any pirat
ical, fillibustering raid, enterprise, or excursion,
of which the free States north and west would
become the principal theatres. Such a marauding
community as the South would become, in case
of success, will be unexampled in history. The
Cylician pirates, the Barbary robbers, nay, the Tar-
OCTOBER, 1361.] DIARY. 113
tars of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, were vir
tuous and civilized in comparison with what would
be an independent, man-stealing, and man-whip
ping Southern agglomeration of lawless men. The
free States could have no security, even if all the
thus called gentlemen and men of honor were to
sign a treaty or a compromise. The Southern pesti
lential influence would poison not only the North,
but this whole hemisphere. The history of the past
has nothing to be compared with organized, legal
piracy, as would become the thus-called Southern
chivalry on land and on sea ; and soon European
maritime powers would be obliged to make costly
expeditions for the sake of extirpating, crushing,
uprooting the nest of pirates, which then will em
brace about twelve millions, — every Southern gen
tleman being a pirate at heart.
This is what the Northern people know by experi
ence and by intuition, and what makes the people
so uneasy about the inertia of the administration.
Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, Gen. Scott, and other
great men, arc soured against the people and public
opinion for distrusting, or rather for criticising their
little display of statesmanlike activity. How un
just ! As a general rule, of all human sentiments,
confidence is the most scrutinizing one. If confi
dence is bestowed, it wants to perfectly know the
why. But from the outset of this war the Ameri
can people gave and give to everybody full, unsus
pecting confidence, without asking the why, without
114 D I A E Y. [OCTOBER, 1861.
even scrutinizing the actions which were to justify
the claim.
Up to this day Secesh is the positive pole ; tho
Union is .the negative, — it is the blow recipient.
"When, oh, when will come the opposite? When
will we deal blows ? Not under McClcllan, I sus
pect.
NOVEMBER, 1861.
Ball's Bluff— Whitewashing — " Victoria! Old Scott gone overboard! "
— His fatal influence — His conceit — Cameron — Intervention — More
reviews — Weed, Everett, Hughes — Gov. Andrew — IJoutwell —
Mason and Slidcll caught — Lincoln frightened by the South Caro
lina success— Waits unnoticed in McClellan's library — Gen. Thomas
— Traitors and pedants — The Virginia campaign — West Point —
McClellan's speciality— Whc»will they begin to see through him ?
THE season is excellent for military operations,
such as any Napoleon could wish it. And we,. lying
not on our oars or arms, but in our beds, as our
spes patriot is warmly and cosily established in a
large house, receiving there the incense and saluta
tions of all flunkeys. Even cabinet jninisters crowd
McClellan's antechambers !
The massacre at Ball's Bluff is the work either
of treason, or of stupidity, or of cowardice, or most
probably of all three united.
No European government and no European na
tion would thus coolly bear it. Any commander
culpable of such stupidity would be forever dis
graced, and dismissed from the army. Here the
administration, the Cabinet, and all the Scotts, the
McClellans, the Thomases, etc., strain their brains
and muscles to whitewash themselves or the cul
prit — to represent this massacre as something very
innocent.
Victoria ! Victoria ! Old Scott, Old Mischief, gone
115
116 DIARY. [NOVEMBER, 1861.
overboard ! So vanished one of the two evil genii
keeping guard over Mr. Lincoln's brains. But it
will not be so easy to redress the evil done by
Scott. He nailed the country's cause to such a
turnpike that any of his successors will perhaps be
unable to undo what Old Mischief has done. Scott
might have had certain, even eminent, military
capacity ; but, all things considered, he had it only
on a small scale. Scott never had in his hand
large numbers, and hundreds of European generals
of division's would do the same that Scott did, even
in Mexico. Any one in Europe, who in some way
or other participated in the events of the last forty
years, has had occasion to see or participate in one
single day in more and better fighting, to hear more
firing, and smell more powder, than has General
Scott in his whole life.
Scott's fatal influence palsied, stiffened, and poi
soned every noble or higher impulse, and every aspi
ration of the people. Scott diligently sowed the
first seeds of antagonism between volunteers and
regulars, and diligently nursed them. Around his
person in the War Department, and in the army,
General Scott kept and maintained officers, who,
already before the inauguration, declared, and daily
asserted, that if it comes to a war, few officers of the
army will unite with the North and remain loyal to
the Union.
He never forgot to be a Virginian, and was filled
with all a Virginian's conceit. To the last hour he
warded off blows aimed at Virginia. To this hour
NOVEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 117
he never believed in a serious war, and HOT? re-
quiescat in pace until the curse of coming genera
tions.
McClcllan is invested with all the powers of Scott.
McClcllan has more on his shoulders than any man
— a Napoleon not cxceptcd — can stand ; and with
his very limited capacity McClcllan must necessarily
break under it. Now McClcllan will be still more
idolized. He is already a kind of dictator, as Lin
coln, Scward, etc., turn around him.
In a conversation with Cameron, I warned him
against bestowing such powers on McClcllan.
" What shall we do ? " was Cameron's answer ;
" neither the President nor I know anything about
military affairs." Well, it is true ; but McClcllan is
scarcely an apprentice.
Again the intermittent fear, or fever, of foreign
intervention. How absurd ! Americans belittle
themselves talking and thinking about it. The
European powers will not, and cannot. That is my
creed and my answer ; but some of our agents, diplo
mats, and statesmen, try to made capital for them
selves from this fever which they evoke to establish
before the public that their skill preserves the coun
try from foreign intervention. Bosh !
All the good and useful produced in the life and
in the economy of nations, all the just and the right
in their institutions, all the ups and downs, misfor
tunes and disasters befalling them, all this was, is,
and forever will be the result of logical deductions
118 DIARY. [No TIMBER, 1861
from pre-existing dates and facts. And here almost
everybody forgets the yesterday.
A revolution imposes obligations. A revolution
makes imperative the development and the practical
application of those social principles which are its
basis.
The American Revolution of 1776 proclaimed self-
government, equality before all, happiness of all,
etc. ; it is therefore the peremptory duty of the Amer
ican people to uproot domestic oligarchy, based
upon living on the labor of an enslaved man ; it has
to put a stop to the moral, intellectual, and physical
servitude of both, of whites and of colored.
Eminent men in America are taunted with the
ambition to reach the White House. In itself it is
not condemnable ; it is a noble or an ignoble ambi
tion, according to the ways and means used to reach
that aim. It is great and stirring to see one's name
recorded in the list of Presidents of the United
States ; but there is still a record far shorter, but by
far more to be envied — a record venerated by our
race — it is the record of truly great men. The ac
tually inscribed runners for the White House do
not think of this.
No one around me here seems to understand (and
no one is familiar enough with general history) that
protracted wars consolidate a nationality. Every
day of Southern existence shapes it out more and
more into a nation, with all the necessary moral and
material conditions of existence.
Seeing these repeated reviews, I cannot get rid of
NOVEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 119
the idea that by such shows and displays McClellan
tries to frighten the rebels in the Chinaman fashion.
The collateral -missions to England, France, and
Spain, are to add force to our cause before the
public opinion as well as before the rulers. But
what a curious choice of men ! It would be called
even an unhappy one. Thurlow Weed, with his off
hand, apparently sincere, if not polished ways, may
not be too repulsive to English refinement, provided
he docs not buttonhole his interlocutionists, or does
not pat them on the shoulder. So Thurlow Weed
will be dined, wined, etc. But doubtless the Lon
don press will show him up, or some " Sccesh " in
London will do it. I am sure that Lord Lyons, as
it is his paramount duty, has sent to Earl Russell a
full and detailed biography of this Se ward's alter
ego, sent ad latus to Mr. Adams. Thurlow Weed
will be considered an agreeable fellow ; but he never
can acquire much weight and consideration, neither
with the statesmen, nor with the members of the
government, nor in saloons, nor with the public at
large.
Edward Everett begged to be excused from such a
false position offered to him in London. Not fish,
not flesh. It was rather an offence to proffer it to
Everett. The old patriot better knows Europe, its
cabinets, and exigencies, than those who attempted
to intricate him in this ludicrous position. He is
right, and he will do more good here than he could
do in London — there on a level with Thurlow
Weed!
120 DIARY. [NovEMBEB, 1861.
Archbishop Hughes is to influence Paris and
France, — but whom ? The public opinion, which is
on our side, is anti-Roman, and Hughes is an Ultra
Montane — an opinion not over friendly to Louis
Napoleon. The French clergy in every way, in
culture, wisdom, instruction, theology, manners,
deportment, etc., is superior to Hughes in incalcu
lable proportions, and the French clergy are already
generally anti-slavery. Hughes to act on Louis
Napoleon ! Why ! the French Emperor can outwit
a legion of Hugheses, and do this without the slight
est effort. Besides, for more than a century European
sovereigns, governments, and cabinets, have gener
ally given up the use of bishops, etc., for political,
public, or confidential missions. Mr. Seward stirs
up old dust. All the liberal party in Europe or
France will look astonished, if "not worse, at this
absurdity.
All things considered, it looks like one of Sew-
ard's personal tricks, and Seward outwitted Chase,
took him in by proffering a similar mission to Chase's
friend, Bishop Mcllvaine. But I pity Dayton. He
is a high-toned man, and the mission of Hughes
is a humiliation to Dayton.
Whatever may be the objects of these missions,
they look like petty expedients, unworthy a minister
of a great government.
Mason and Slidell caught. England will roar,
but here the people are satisfied. Some of the di
plomats make curious faces. Lord Lyons behaves
NOVEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 121
with dignity. The small Bremen flatter right and
left, and do it like little lap-dogs.
Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, ex-Governor
Boutwcll, arc tip-top men — men of the people. The
Blairs are too heinous, too violent, in their persecu
tion of Fremont. Warned M. Blair not to protect
one whom Fremont deservedly expelled. But M.
Blair, in his spite against Fremont, took a mean
adventurer by the hand, and entangled therein the
President.
The vessel and the crew are excellent, and would
easily obey the hand of a helmsman, but there is the
rub, where to find him ? Lincoln is a simple man
of the prairie, and his eyes penetrate not the fog,
the tempest. They do not perceive the signs of the
times — cannot embrace the horizon of the nation.
And thus his small intellectual insight is dimmed
by those around him. Lincoln begins now already
to believe that he is infallible ; that he is ahead of
the people, and frets that the people may remain
behind. Oh simplicity or conceit !
Again, Lincoln is frightened with the success in
South Carolina, as in his opinion this success will
complicate the question of slavery. He is fright
ened as to what he shall do with Charleston and
Augusta, provided these cities are taken.
It is disgusting to hear with what supercilious
ness the different members of the Cabinet speak of
the approaching Congress — and not one of them is
in any way the superior of many congressmen.
When Congress meets, the true national balance
122 DIARY. [NOVEMBER, 1861.
account will be struck. The commercial and pirat
ical flag of the secesh is virtually in all waters and
ports. (The little cheese-eater, the Hollander, was
the first to raise a fuss against the United States
concerning the piratical flag. This is not to be for
gotten.) 2d. Prestige, to a great extent, lost. 3d.
Millions upon millions wasted. Washington besieged
and blockaded, and more than 200,000 men kept in
check by an enemy not by half as strong. 4th.
Every initiative which our diplomacy tried abroad
was wholly unsuccessful, and we are obliged to sub
mit to new international principles inaugurated at
our cost ; and, summing up, instead of a broad,
decided, general policy, we have vacillation, inaction,
tricks, and expedients. The people fret, and so
will the Congress. Nations are as individuals ; any
partial disturbance in a part of the body occasions a
general chill. Nature makes efforts to check the
beginning of disease, and so do nations. In the hu
man organism nature does not submit willingly to
the loss of health, or of a limb, or of life. Nature
struggles against death. So the people of the Union
will not submit to an amputation, and is uneasy to
see how unskilfully its own family doctors treat the
national disease.
Port Royal, South Carolina, taken. Great and
general rejoicing. It is a brilliant feat of arms, but
a questionable military and war policy. Those
attacks on the circumference, or on extremities,
never can become a death-blow to secesh. The reb
els must be crushed in the focus ; they ought to
XOVEMBEU, 1861.] D I A R Y.
receive a blow at the heart. This new strategy
seems to indicate that McClellan has not heart
enough to attack the fastnesses of rcbcldom, but
expects that something may turn up from these
small expeditions. He expects to weaken the rebels
iii their focus. I wish McClellan may be right in
his expectations, but I doubt it.
Officers of McClellan's staff tell that Mr. Lincoln
almost daily comes into McClellan's library, and sits
there rather unnoticed. On several occasions Mc
Clellan let the President wait in the room, together
with other common mortals.
The English statesmen and the English press have
the notion deeply rooted in their brains that the
American people fight for' empire. The rebels do
it, but not the free men.
Mr. Seward's emphatical prohibition to Mr. Adams
to mention the question of slavery may have con
tributed to strengthen in England the above-men
tioned fallacy. This is a blunder, which before long
or short Seward will repent. It looks like astute
ness — ruse ; but if so, it is the resource of a rather
limited mind. In great and minor affairs, straight
forwardness is the best policy. Loyalty always gets
the better of astuteness, and the more so when the
opponent is unprepared to meet it. Tricks can bo
well met by tricks, but tricks are impotent against
truth and sincerity. But Mr. Seward, unhappily,
has spent his life in various political tricks, and was
surrounded by men whose intimacy must have ne
cessarily lowered and unhealthily affected him. All
124 DIARY. [NOVEMBER, 1861.
his most intimates are unintellectual mediocrities or
tricksters.
Seward is free from that infamous know-nothing-
ism of which this Gen. Thomas is the great master
(a man every few weeks accused of treason by the
public opinion, and undoubtedly vibrating between
loyalty here and sympathy with rebels).
All this must have unavoidably vitiated Mr. Sew-
ard's better nature. In such way only can I see
plainly why so many excellent qualities are marred
in him. He at times can broadly comprehend
things around him; he is good-natured when not
stung, and he is devoted to his men.
As a patriot, he is American to the core — were
only his domestic policy straight-forward and decided,
and would he only stop meddling with the plans of
the campaign, and let the War Department alone.
Since every part of his initiative with European
cabinets failed, Seward very skilfully dispatches all
the minor affairs with Europe — affairs generated
by various maritime and international complications.
Were his domestic policy as correct as is now his
foreign policy, Seward would be the right man.
Statesmanship emerges from the collision of great
principles with important interests. In the great
Revolution, the thus called fathers of the nation
were the offsprings of the exigencies of the time,
and they were fully up to their task. They were
vigorous and fresh ; their intellect was not obstruct
ed by any political routine, or by tricky political
praxis. Such men are now needed at the helm to
NOVEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 125
carry this noble people throughout the most terrible
tempest. So in these days one hears so much about
constitutional formulas as safeguards of liberty.
True liberty is not to be virtually secured by any
framework of rules and limitations, devisable only
by statecraft. The perennial existence of liberty
depends not on the action of any definite and as-
certainable machinery, but on continual accessions
of fresh and vital influences. But perhaps such
influences are among the noblest, and therefore
among the rarest, attributes of man.
Abroad and here, traitors and some pedants on
formulas make a noise concerning the violation of
formulas. Of course it were better if such viola
tions had been left undone. But all this is tran
sient, and evoked by the direst necessity. The Con
stitution was made for a healthy, normal condition
of the nation ; the present condition is abnormal.
Regular functions are suspended. When the hu
man body is ruined or devoured by a violent disease,
often very tonic remedies are used — remedies which
would destroy the organism if administered when
in a healthy, normal condition. A strong organism
recovers from disease, and from its treatment. Hu
man societies and institutions pass through a similar
ordeal, and when they are unhinged, extraordinary
and abnormal ways are required to maintain the
endangered society and restore its equipoise.
Examining day after day the map of Virginia, it
strikes one that a movement with half of the army
could be made down from Mount Vernon by the
126 DIARY. [NOVEMBER, 1861.
two turnpike roads, and by water to Occoquan, and
from there to Brentsville. The country there seems
to be flat, and not much wooded. Manassas would
be taken in the rear, and surrounded, provided the
other half of the army would push on by the direct
way from here to Manassas, and seriously attack the
enemy, who thus would be broken, could not escape.
This, or any plan, the map of Virginia ought to sug
gest to the staif of McClellan, were it a staff in the
true meaning. Dybitsch and Toll, young colonels in
the staff of Alexander L, 1813-14, originated the
march on Paris, so destructive to Napoleon. His
tory bristles with evidences how with staffs originated
many plans of battles and of campaigns ; history ex
plains the paramount influence of staffs on the con
duct of a war. Of course Napoleon wanted not a
suggestive, but only an executive staff; but McClel
lan is not a Napoleon, and has neither a suggestive
nor an executive staff around him. A Marcy to
suggest a plan of a campaign or of a battle, to watch
over its execution !
I spoke to McDowell about the positions of Occo-
quau and Brentsville. He answered that perhaps
something similar will be under consideration, and
that McClellan must show his mettle and capacity.
I pity McDowell's confidence.
Besides, the American army as it was and is edu
cated, nursed, brought up by Gen. Scott, — the army
has no idea what are the various and complicated
duties of a staff. No school of staff at West Point ;
therefore the difficulty to find now genuine officers
NOVEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 127
of the staff. If McClcllan ever moves this army,
then the effectiveness of his staff may occasion losses
and even disasters. It will be worse with his staff
than it was at Jena with the Prussian staff, who
were as conceited as the small West Point clique
here in Washington.
West Point instructs well in special branches, but
does not necessarily form generals and captains.
The great American Revolution was fought and
made victorious by men not from any military
schools, and to whom w^erc opposed commanders
with as much military science as there was pos
sessed and current in Europe. ' Jackson, Taylor,
and even Scott, are not from the school.
I do not wish to judge or disparage the pupils
from West Point, but I am disgusted with the super
cilious and ridiculous behavior of the clique here,
ready to form praetorians or anything else, and poi
soning around them the public opinion. Western
generals are West Point pupils, but I do not hear
them make so much fuss, and so contemptuously
look down on the volunteers. These Western gen
erals pine not after regulars, but make use of
such elements as they have under hand. The best
and most patriotic generals and officers here, edu
cated at West Point, are numerous. Unhappily
a clique, composed of a few fools and fops, over
shadows the others.
McClellan's speciality is engineering. It is a spe
ciality which does not form captains and generals
for the field, — at least such instances are very rare.
128 DIARY. [NOVEMBER, 1861.
Of all Napoleon's marshals and eminent command
ers, Berthier alone was educated as engineer, and his
speciality and high capacity was that of a chief of
the staff. Marescott or Todleben would never claim
to be captains. The intellectual powers of an en
gineer are modeled, drilled, turned towards the
defensive, — the engineer's brains concentrate upon
selecting defensive positions, and combine how to
strengthen them by art. So an engineer is rather
disabled from embracing a whole battle-field, with
its endless casualties and space. Engineers are the
incarnation of a defensive warfare.; all others, as
artillerists, infantry, and cavalry, are for dashing
into the unknown — into the space ; and thus these
specialities virtually represent the offensive warfare.
When will they begin to see through McClellan,
and find out that he is not the man ? Perhaps too
late, and then the nation will sorely feel it.
Mr. Seward almost idolizes McClellan. Poor
homage that ; but it does mischief by reason of its
.influence on the public opinion.
DECEMBER, 1861.
The message — Emancipation — State papers published — Curtis Noyes —
Greeley not fit for Sector — Generalship all on the rebel side — Tho
South and the North — The sensationists — The new idol will cost the
people their life-blood ! — The Blairs — Poor Lincoln! — The Trent
affair — Scott home again — The war investigation committee — Mr.
Mercier.
McCLELLAN is now all-powerful, and refuses to
divide the army into corps. Thus much for his
brains and for his consistency.
The message — a disquisition upon labor and
capital ; hesitancy about slavery. The President
wishes to be pushed on by public opinion. But
public opinion is safe, and expects from the official
leader a decided step onwards. The message gives
no solution, suggests none, accounts not for the lost
time — foreshadows not a vigorous, energetic effort
to crush the rebellion ; foreshadows not a vigorous,
offensive war. The message is an honest paper, but
says not much.
The question of emancipation is not clear even in
the heads o^ the leading emancipationists ; not one
thinks to give freeholds to the emancipated. It is
the only way to make them useful to themselves
and to the community. Freedom without land is
humbug, and the fools speak of exportation of the
9 129
130 DIARY. [DECEMBER, 1861.
four millions of slaves, depriving thus the country
of laborers, which a century of emigration cannot
fill again. All these fools ought to be sent to a
lunatic asylum.
To export the emancipated would be equivalent
to devastation of the South, to its transformation
into a wilderness. Small freeholds for the emanci
pated can be cut out of the plantations of rebels,
or out of the public lands of each State — lands for
feited by the rebellion.
State papers published. The instructions to the
various diplomatic agents betray a beginner in the
diplomatic career. By writing special instructions
for each minister, Mr. Seward unnecessarily in
creased his task. The cause, reasons, etc., of the
rebellion are one and the same for France or Rus
sia, and a single explanatory circular for all the
ministers would have done as well and spared a
great deal of labor. Cavour wrote one circular to
all cabinets, and so do all European statesmen. So,
as they are, the State papers are a curious agglom
eration of good patriotism and confusion. So the
Minister to England is to avoid slavery ; the Minister
to France has the contrary. All this is not smart
ness or diplomacy, but rather confusion, insincerity,
and double-dealing. One must conclude that Lin
coln and Seward have themselves no firm opinion.
The instructions to Mexico would sound nobly-
worded but for the confusion and the veil ordered
to be thrown upon the cause of secession. That to
Italy, above all to Austria, has a smack of a school-
DECEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 131
jt
master displaying his information before a gaping
boy. It is offensive to the Minister going to Vienna.
It may bo suspected that some of these instructions
were written to make capital at home, to astonish
Mr. Lincoln with the knowledge of Europe and the
familiarity with European affairs. All this display
will prove to Europeans rather an ignorance of
Europe. The correspondence on the Paris conven
tion is splendid, although the initiative taken by
Seward on this question was a mistake. But he
argued well the case against the English and French
reservations.
Never any government whatever treated so ten
derly its worst and most dangerous enemies as docs
this government the Washington secessionists, spies
for the enemy, and spreading false news here to
frighten McClellan.
The old regular, but partly worn-out Republican
leaders throttle and neutralize the new, fresh, vigor
ous accessions. So Curtis Noyes, one of the most
eminent and devoted men, could not come into the
Senate because Greeley wished to be elected.
No living man has rendered greater services to the
people during the last twenty years than Greeley ;
but he ought to remain in his speciality. Greeley
is no more fit for a Senator than to take the com
mand of a regiment. Besides, the events already
run over his head ; Greeley is slowly breaking down.
McClellan is beset with all kinds of inventors,
contractors, etc. He mostly endorses their sugges
tions, and on this authority the most extravagant
132 DIARY. [DECEMBER, 1861.
sr
orders are given by the War Department. All this
ought to be investigated. Somebody back of Mc-
Clellan may be found as being the real patron of
these leeches.
If the genius or capacity of a commander consists
not only in closely observing the movements of the
enemy, but likewise in penetrating the enemy's
plans and in modifying his own in proportion as
they are deranged by an unexpected movement or
a rapid march, then the generalship is altogether on
the other side, and on ours not a sign, not a breath
of it.
A civil war is mostly the purifying fire in a
nation's existence. It is to be hoped that this great
convulsion will purify the free States by sounding
the death-knell of these small intriguing politicians.
The American people at large will acquire earnest
ness, knowledge of men, and clear insight into its
own affairs. Tricky politicians will be discarded,
and true men backed by majorities.
The South has for its leaders the chiefs who for
years organized the secession, who waged everything
on its success, as life, honor, fortune, and who in
cite and carry with them the ignorant masses.
The reverse is in the North. Mr. Lincoln was
not elected for suppressing the rebellion, nor did he
make his Cabinet in view of a terrible national strug
gle for death or life. Neither Lincoln nor his Cabi
net are the inciters or the inspiring leaders of the
people, but only expressions — not ad hoc — of the
national will. This is one reason why the adminis-
DECEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 183
tration is slower than the people, and why the rebel
administration is quicker than ours.
The second reason, and generated by the first, is,
that every rebel devotes his whole soul and energy
to the success of the rebellion, forcibly forgetting
his individuality. Our thus called leaders think
.first of their little selves, whose aggrandizement the
public events are to secure, and the public cause is
to square itself with their individual schemes.
Such is the policy of almost all those at the helm
here. Not one among them is to 'be found deserv
ing the name of a statesman, endowed with a great
devotion, and with a great power, for the service of
a great and noble aim. From the solemn hour that
the fatherland honorably chains him to its service,
the genuine statesman exists no more for himself,
but for his country alone. If necessary, he ought
to consider himself a victim to the public good,
even were the public unjust towards him. He is to
treat as enemies all the dirty, tricky, and mean pas
sions and men. His enemies will hate, but the
country, his enemies included, will esteem him.
Such a man will be the genuine man of the Ameri
can people, but he exists not in the official spheres.
It is for the first time in history that a young, in
significant man, without a past, without any reason,
is put in such a lofty position as has been McClellan ;
he is to be literally kicked into greatness, and into
showing eventually courage. All this is a psycholo
gical problem !
134 DIARY. [DECEMBER, 1861.
Kent's Commentary upon the qualifications of a
President is the best criticism upon Lincoln.
These mosquitoes of public opinion, the sensa
tion-seekers, the sentimental preachers, the lectur
ers, the amateurs of the thus called representative
men, these oratorical falsifiers of history, but con
sidered here as luminaries, are already at their per
nicious, nay, accursed work.
They poison the judgment of the people. These
hero-seekers for their sermons, lectures, and sensa
tion productions, have already found all the criteria
of a hero in McClellan, even in his chin, in the
back of his horse, etc., etc., and now herald it all
over the country. Curses be upon them.
No nation has ever raised idols with such facility
as do the Americans. Nay, I do not suppose that
there ever existed in history a nation with such a
thirst for idols as this people. I may be a false
prophet ; but this new idol, McClellan, will cost them
their life-blood.
The Blairs are now staunch supporters of Mc
Clellan. It is unpardonable. They ought to know,
and they do know better. But Mr. Blair wishes to
be Secretary of War in Cameron's place, and wishes
to get it through McClellan.
And poor Lincoln ! I pity him ; but his advisers
may make out of him something worse even than
was Judas, in the curses of ages.
Polybius asserts that when the Greeks wrote about
Rome they erred and lied, and when the Romans
wrote of themselves they lied or boasted. The same
DECEMBER, 1861.] DIARY. 135
the English do in relation to themselves, and to
Americans. Above all, in this Trent affair, or ex
citement, all European writers for the press, profess
ors, doctors, etc., pervert facts, reason, and inter
national laws, forget the past, and lie or natter, with
a slight exception, as is Gasparin.
The Trent affair finished. We are a little hum
bled, but it was expedient to terminate it so. "With
another military leader than McClellan, we could
march .at the same time to Richmond, and invest
Canada before any considerable English force could
arrive there. But with such a hero at our head,
better that it ends so. Europe will applaud us, and
the relation with England will become clarified.
Perhaps England would not have been so stiff in
this Trent affair but for the fixed idea in Russell's,
Newcastle's, Palmerston's, etc., heads that Seward
wishes to pick a quarrel with England.
The first weeks of Seward's premiership pointed
that way. Mr. Seward has the honors of the Trent
affair. It is well as it is ; the argument is smart,
but a little too long, and not in a genuine diplo
matic style. But Lincoln ought to have a little
credit for it, as from the start he was for giving the
traitors up.
The worst feature of the whole Trent affair is,
that it brought back home from France this old
mischief, General Scott. He will again resume his
position as the first military authority in the coun
try, confuse the judgment of Lincoln, of the press,
136 DIARY. [DECEMBER, 1861.
and of the people, and again, push the country into
mire.
The Congress appointed a War Investigating
Committee, Senator Wade at the head. There is
hope that the committee will quickly find out what
a terrible mistake this McClellan is, and warn the
nation of him. But Lincoln, Seward, and the
Blairs, will not give up their idol.
Louis Napoleon said his word about the Trent
affair. All things considered, the conduct of the
Emperor cannot be complained of. The Thouvenel
paper is serious, severe, but intrinsically not un
friendly. Quite the contrary. Up to this time I
am right in my reliance on Louis Napoleon, on his
sound, cool, but broad comprehension.
Mr. Mercier behaves well, and he is to be relied
on, provided we show mettle and fight the traitors.
Now, as the Buropean imbroglio is clarified, at them,
at them ! But nothing to hope or expect from Mc
Clellan. I daily preach, but in the wilderness.
Prince de Joinville made a very ridiculous fuss
about the Trent affair.
Americans believe that a statesman must be an
orator. Schoolboy-like, they judge on English prece
dents. In England, the Parliament is omnipotent ;
it makes and unmakes administrations, therefore
oratory is a necessary corollary in a statesman ; but
here the Cabinet acts without parliamentary wran-
glings, and a Jackson is the true type of an Ameri
can statesman. Washington was not an orator, nor
was Alexander Hamilton.
JANUARY, 1862.
The year 1861 ends badly— European defenders of slavery — Secession
lies — Jeremy Diddlers — Sensation-seekers — Despotic tendencies
— Atomistic Torquemadas — Congress chained by formulas — Burn-
side's expedition a sign of life — Will this McClellan ever advance ? —
Mr. Adams unhorsed — He packs his trunks — Bad blankets — Aus
tria, Prussia, and Ilussia — The West Point nursery — McClellan a
greater mistake than Scott — Tracks to the White House — European
stories about Mr. Lincoln — The English ignorami — The slaveholder
a scarcely varnished savage — Jeff. Davis — " Beauregard frightens
us — McClellan rocks his baby " — Fancy army equipment — McClel
lan and his chief of staff sick in bed — " No satirist could invent such
things " — Stanton in the Cabinet— " This Stanton is the people" —
Fremont — Weed — The English will not be humbugged — Dayton in
a fret — Beaufort — The investigating committee condemn McClellan
— Lincoln in the clutches of Scward and Blair — Banks begs for guns
and cavalry in vain — The people will awake ! — The question of race
— Agassiz.
AN ugly year ended in backing before England,
having, at least, relative right on our side. Further,
the ending year has revealed a certain incapacity in
the Republican party's leaders, at least its official
leaders, to administer the country and to grasp the
events. If the new year shall be only the continu
ation of the faults, the mistakes, and the incapaci
ties prevailing during 1861, then the worst is to
be expected.
The lowest in moral degradation is an European
defending slavery here or in Europe. Such Euro-
is?
138 DIARY. [JANUABY, 1862.
peans are far below the condemned criminals. Still
lower are such Europeans who become defenders of
slavery after having visited plantations, where, in
the shape of wines and delicacies, they tasted human
blood, and then, hyenas-like, smacked their lips And
thirsted for more.
Always the same stories, lies, and humbugs con
cerning the hundreds of thousands of rebels in
Manassas. These lies are spread here in Washing
ton by the numerous secessionists — at large, by
such ignoble sheets as the New York Herald and
Times ; and McClellan seems to willingly swallow
these lies, as they justify his inaction and c .
The city is more and more crowded with Jeremy
Diddlers, with lecturers, with sensation-seekers, all
of them in advance discounting their hero, and
showing in broad light their gigantic stupidity. One
of this motley finds in McClellan a Norman chin,
the other muscle, the third a brow for laurels (of
thistle I hope), another a square, military, heroic
frame, another firmness in lips, another an unfath-
omed depth in the eye, etc., etc. Never I heard in
Europe such balderdash. And the ladies — not the
women and gentlewomen — are worse than the men
in thus stupefying themselves and those around them.
The thus called arbitrary acts of the government
prove how easily, on the plea of patriotic necessity,
a people, nay, the public opinion, submits to arbi
trary rule. All this, servility included, explains the
facility with which, in former times, concentrated and
concrete despotisms have been established. Here
JANUARY, 1862. j DIARY. 139
every such arbitrary action is submitted to, because
it is so new, and because the people has the childish,
naive, but, to it, honorable confidence, that the power
entrusted by the people is used in the interest and
for the welfare of the people. But all the despots
of all times and of all nations said the same. How
ever, in justice to Mr. Lincoln, he is pure, and has
no dcspotical longings, but he has around him some
atomistic Torquemadas.
It will be very difficult to the coming generations
to believe that a people, a generation, who for half
a century was outrunning the time, who applied the
steam and the electro-magnetic telegraph, that the
same people, when overrun by a terrible crisis, moved
slowly, waited patiently, and suffered from the mis
management of its leaders. This is to be exclu
sively explained by the youthful self-consciousness
of an internal, inexhaustible vital force, and by the
child-like inexperience.
The Congress, that is, the majority, shows that it
is aware of the urgency of the case, and of the dan
gerous position of the country. But still the best
in Congress are chained, hampered by the formulas.
The good men in both the houses seem to be
firmly decided not to quietly stand by and assist in
the murder of the nation by the administrative
and military incapacity. This was to be expected
from such men as Wade, Grimes, Chandler, Hale,
Wilson, Sunnier (too classical), and other Republi
cans in the Senate, and from the numerous pure,
radical Republicans in the House.
140 DIARY. [JANUARY, 1862.
Burnside's expedition is a sign of life. But all
these expeditions on the circumference, even if suc
cessful, will be fruitless if no bold, decided move
ment is at once made at the centre, at the heart of
the rebellion. But McClellan, as his supporters
say, matures his strategical plans. O God ! Gen
eral Scott lost by strategy three-fourths of the coun
try's cause, and very probably by strategy McClel
lan will jeopardize what remains of it.
Will this McClellan ever advance ? If he lingers,
he may find only rats in Manassas. McClellan is
ignorant of the great, unique rule for all affairs and
undertakings, — it is to throw the whole man in one
thing at one time. It is the same in the camp as in
the study, for a captain as for a lawyer, the savant,
and the scholar.
It is to be regretted that some of the men truly
and thoroughly devoted to the cause of freedom
and of humanity, mix with it such an enormous
quantity of personal, almost childish vanity, as to
puzzle many minds concerning the genuine noble
ness of their devotion. It is to be regretted that
those otherwise so self-sacrificing patriots discount
even their martyrdom and persecutions, and credit
them to their frivolous self-satisfaction.
Most of the thus-called well-informed Americans
rather skim over than thoroughly study history.
Above all, it applies to the general history of the
Christian era, and of our great epoch (from the sec
ond half of the 18th century). Most of the Ameri
cans are only very superficially familiar with the
JAMTAKT, 1862.] DIARY. 141
history of continental Europe, or know it only by
its contact with the history of England. Many of
them are more familiar with the classical wars of
Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, etc., than with those
of Gustavus, Frederick II., and even of Napoleon.
Were it otherwise, strategy would not to such an
extent have taken hold of their brains.
Mr. Adams was terribly unhorsed during the
Trent excitement in England ; he literally began to
pack up his trunks, and asked a personal advice
from Lord John Russell.
What a devoted patriot this Sandford in Belgium
is ; he has continual tickings in his hand to pay a
higher price for bad blankets that they may not fall
into the hands of secesh agents ; so with cloth, so
perhaps with arms. Oh, disinterested patriot !
Austria and Prussia whipped in by England and
France, and at the same time glad to have an occa
sion to take the airs of maritime powers. Austria
and Prussia sent their advice concerning the Trent
affair. The kick of asses at what they suppose to
be the dying lion.
Austria and Prussia ! Great heavens ! Ask the
prisons of both those champions of violated rights
how many better men than Slidell and Mason
groaned in them ; and the conduct of those powers
against the Poles in 1831 ! Was it neutral or hon
est?
I am sure that Russia will behave well, and ab
stain from coming forward with uncalled-for and
humiliating advice. Russia is a true great power,
142 D I A E Y. [JANUARY, 1862.
— a true friend, — and such noble behavior will be
in harmony with the character of Alexander II. ,
and with the friendliness and clear perception cf
events held by the Russian minister here. I hope
that when the war is over the West Point nursery
will be reformed, and a general military organiza
tion introduced, such a one as exists in Switzerland.
McClellan is a greater mistake than was even
Scott. McClellan knows not the A B C of military
history of any nation or war, or he would not keep
this army so in camp. He would know that after
recruits have been roughly instructed in the rudi
ments of a drill, the next best instructor is fighting.
So it was in the thirty years' war ; so in the Ameri
can Revolution ; so in the first French revolutionary
wars. Strategians, martinets, lost the battles, or
rather the campaigns, of Austerlitz, of Jena, etc.
In 1813 German rough levies fought almost before
they were drilled, and at Bautzen French recruits
were victorious over Prussians, Russians, and Aus-
trians. The secesh fight with fresh levies, etc.
Numerous political intriguers surrounding Mc
Clellan are busily laying tracks for him to the White
House. What will Seward and Chase say to it, and
even old Abe, who himself dreams of re-election, or
at least his friends do it for him ? All these can
didates forget that the surest manner to rcacli the
White House is not to think of it — to forget oneself
and to act.
It is amusing to find in European papers all the
various stories about Mr. Lincoln. There he is
JANUARY, 1862.] DIARY. 143
represented as a violent, "blood-thirsty revolutionaire,
dragging the people after him. In this manner,
those European imbeciles are acquainted with Amer
ican events, character, etc. They cannot find out
that in decision, in clear-sightedness and soundness
of judgment, the people arc far ahead of Mr. Lincoln
and of his spiritual or constitutional conscience-keep
ers. And the same imbeciles, if not canailes, speak
of a mob-rule over the President, etc. Some one
ought to enlighten those French and English super
cilious ignorami that something like a mob only pre
vails in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore ; and nine-tenths of such a mob are mostly
yet unwashed, iinrepublicanized Europeans. The
ninety-nine one-hundredths of the freemen of the
North are more orderly, more enlightened, more law-
abiding, and more moral than are the English lord-
lings, somebodies, nobodies, and would-be some
bodies. In the West, lynch-law, to be sure, is at
times used against brothels, bar-rooms, gambling-
houses, and thieves. It would be well to do the same
in London, were it not that most of the lynch-lawed
may not belong to the people. If the European
scribblers were not past any honest impulse, they
would know that the South is the generator and the
congenial region for the mob, the filibusters, the
revolver and the bowie-knife rule. In the South the
proportion of mobs to decency is the reverse of that
prevailing in tlie free States. The slavery gentle
man is a scarcely varnished savage, for whom the
highest law is his reckless passion and will.
144 DIARY. [JANUARY, 1862.
If Jeff. Davis succeeds, he will be the founder of
a new and great slaveholding empire. His name
will resound in after times ; but history will record
his name as that of a curse to humanity.
And so Davis is making history and Lincoln is
telling stories. Beauregard gets inspired by the
fumes of bivouacs ; McClellan by the fumes of flat
terers. Beauregard frightens us, McClellan rocks
his baby. Beauregard shares the camp-fires of his
soldiers ; he sees them daily, knows them, as it is
said, one by one ; McClellan lives comfortably in the
city, and appears only to the soldiers as the great
Lama on special occasions. Camp-fellowship in
spired all the great captains and established the
magnetic current between the leader and the soldier.
McClellan organized a board of generals, arriving
daily from the camps, to discuss some new fancy
army equipment. And Lincoln, Seward, Blair, and
all the tail of intriguers and imbeciles, still admire
him. In no other country would such a futile
man be kept in command of troops opposed to a
deadly and skilful enemy.
For several weeks, McClellan and his chief of the
staff (such as he is) are sick in bed, and no one is
ad interim appointed to attend to the current affairs
of our army of 600,000, having the enemy before
their nose. Oh human imbecility ! No satirist could
invent such things ; and if told, it would not be be
lieved in Europe.
The McClellan-worship by the people at large is
to be explained by the firm, ardent will of the people
JANUARY, 1862.] DIARY. 145
to crush the rebels, and by the general feeling of the
necessity of a man for that purpose. Such is the
case with the true, confiding people in the country ;
but here, contractors, martinets, and intriguers are
the blowers of that worship. Lincoln is as is the
people at large ; but a Seward, a Blair, a Herald, a
Times, and their respective and numerous tails, —
as for their motives, they are the reverse of Lincoln
and of the people.
Victories in Kentucky, beyond the circumference
or the direct action from here ; they are obtained
without strategy and by rough levies. But this
voice of events is not understood by the McClcllan
tross.
Change in the Cabinet : Stanton, a new man,
not from the parlor, and not from the hacks. His
bulletin on the victory in Kentucky inaugurated a
new era. It is a voice that nobody hitherto uttered
in America. It is the awakening voice of the good
genius of the people, almost as that which awoke
Lazarus. This Stanton is the people ; I never saw
him, but I hope he is the man for the events ; per
haps he may turn out to be my statesman.
1 wish I could get convinced of the real superior
ity of Fremont. It is true that he was treated badly
and had natural and artificial difficulties to over
come ; it is true that to him belongs the credit of
having started the construction of the mortar fleet ;
but likewise it is true that he was, at the mildest,
unsurpassingly reckless in contracts and expendi
tures, and I shall never believe him a general.
10
146 DIARY. [JANUARY, 1862.
With all this, Fremont started a great initiative at a
time when McClellan and three-fourths of the gene
rals of his creation considered it a greater crime to
strike at a gentleman slaveholder than to strike at
the Union.
The courtesies and hospitalities paid to Thurlow
W<fted by English society are clamored here in
various ways. These courtesies prove the high
breeding and the good-will of a part, at least, of the
English aristocracy and of English statesmen. I
do not suppose that Thurlow Weed could ever have
been admitted in such society if he were travelling
on his own merits as the great lobbyist and politi
cian. At the utmost, he would have been shown
up as a rara avis. But introduced to English so
ciety as the master spirit of Mr. Seward, and as
Seward's semi-official confidential agent, Thurlow
Weed was admitted, and even petted. But it is
another question if this palming of a Thurlow
Weed upon the English high-toned statesmen in
creased their consideration for Mr. Seward. The
Duke of Newcastle and others are not yet softened,
and refuse to be humbugged.
Whoever has the slightest knowledge of how af
fairs are transacted, is well aware that the times of
a personal diplomacy arc almost gone. The excep
tions are very rare, very few, and the persons must
be of other might and intellectual mettle than a
Sandford, Weed, or Hughes. Great affairs are not
conducted or decided by conversations, but by
great interests. Diplomatic agents, at the utmost,
JAJCCARY, 1862.] DIARY. 147
serve to keep their respective governments informed
about the run of events. Mr. Mercier does it for
Louis Napoleon ; but Mr. Mercier's reports, however
friendly they may be, cannot' much influence a man
of such depth as Louis Napoleon, and to imagine
that a Hughes will be able to do it ! I am ashamed
of Mr. Seward ; he proves by this would-be-crotchety
policy how little he knows of events and of men,
and how he undervalues Louis Napoleon. Such
humbug missions are good to throw dirt in the eyes
of a Lincoln, a Chase, etc., but in Europe such
things are sent to Coventry. And Hughes to influ
ence Spain ! Oh ! oh !
Dayton frets on account of the mission of Hughes.
Dayton is right. Generally Dayton shows a great
deal of good sense, of good comprehension, and a
noble and independent character. He is not a flat
terer, not servile, and subservient to Mr. Seward, as
are others — Mr. Adams, Mr. Sandford, and some
few other diplomatic agents.
The active and acting abolitionists ought to con
centrate all their efforts to organize thoroughly and
efficiently the district of Beaufort. The success of
a productive colony there would serve as a womb
for the emancipation at large.
Mr. Seward declares that he has given up meddling
with military affairs. For his own sake, and for
the sake of the country, I ardently wish it were so ;
but — I shall never believe it.
The Investigating Committee has made the most
thorough disclosures of the thorough incapacity of
148 DIARY. [JANUAET, 1862.
McClellan ; but the McClellan men, Seward, Blair,
etc., neutralize, stifle all the good which could accrue
to the country from these disclosures. And Lincoln
is in their clutches. The administration by its in
fluence prevents the publication of the results of
this investigation, prevents the truth from coming to
the people. Any hard name will be too soft for such
a moral prevarication.
McClellan is either as feeble as a reed, or a bad
man. The disorder around here is nameless.
Banks compares it to the time of the French
Directory. Banks has no guns, no cavalry, and is
in the vanguard. He begs almost on his knees,
and cannot get anything. And the country pays a
chief of the staff, and head of the staffers.
The time must come, although it be now seem
ingly distant, that the people will awake from this
lethargy; that it will perceive how much of the
noblest blood of the people, how much time and
money, have been worse than recklessly squandered.
The people will find it out, and then they will ask
those Cains at the wheel an account of the innocent
blood of Abel, the country's son, the country's cause.
The defenders of, and the thus called moderate
men on the question of slavery, utter about it the old
rubbish composed of the most thorough ignorance
and of disgusting fallacies, in relation to this pseudo
science, or rather lie, about races. More of it will
come out in the course of the Congressional dis
cussions. Not one of them is aware that independ
ent science, that comparative anatomy, physiology,
JASUABT, 1862.] DIARY. 149
psychology, anthropology, that philosophy of history
altogether and thoroughly repudiate all these super
ficially asserted, or tried-to-be-established, intrinsic
diversities and peculiarities of races. All these
would-be axioms, theories, are based on sand. In
true science the question of race as represented
by the Southern school partisans of slavery, with
Agassiz, the so-called professor of Charleston by
European savans, at their head, — that question is
at the best an illusive element, and endangers the
accuracy of induction. As it presents itself to the
unprejudiced investigator, race is nothing more than
the single manifestation of anterior stages of exist
ence, the aggregate expression of the pre-historic
vicissitudes of a people.
If those would-be knowing arguers on slavery,
race, etc., were only aware of the fact that such
people as the primitive Greeks, or the ancestors of
classical Greeks, that the ancestors of the Latins,
that even the roving, robbing ancestors of the Anglo
Saxons, in somg way or other, have been anthropoph
agi, and worshipped fetishes ; and even as thus call
ed already civilized, they sacrificed men to gods, —
could our great pro-slavers know all this, they
would be more decent in their ignorant assertions,
and not, so self-satisfied, strut about in their dark
ignorance.
Those who are afraid that the freed negroes of the
South will run to the Northern free States, display
an ignorance still greater than the former. When
the enslaved colored Americans in the South shall
150 DIARY. [J ANTI ART, 1862.
be all thoroughly emancipated in that now cursed
region, then they will remain in the, to them, con
genial climate, and in the favorable economical
conditions of labor and of existence. Not only
those emancipated will not run North, but the
colored population from the free States, incited and
stirred up by natural attractions, will leave the
North for the South, as small streamlets and rivu
lets run into a large current or river.
The rebels extend on an immense bow, nearly one
hundred miles, from the lower to the upper Potomac.
Our army, two to one, is on the span of the arc, and
we do nothing. A French sergeant would be better
inspired than is McClellan.
FEBRUARY, 1862.
Drifting — The English blue book — Lord John could not act differently
— Palmerston the great European fuss-maker — Mr. Scward's " two
pickled rods " for England — Lord Lyons — His pathway strewn with
broken glass — Gen. Stone arrested — Sumncr's resolutions infuse a
new spirit in the Constitution — Mr. Seward beyond salvation— Ho
works to save slavery — Weed has ruined him — The New York press
— " roor Tribune " — The Evening Post — The Blairs — Illusions dis
pelled— " All quiet on the Potomac"— The London papers — Quill -
heroes can be bought for a dinner — French opinion — Superhuman
efforts to save slavery — It is doomed! — "All you worshippers of
darkness cannot save it!" — The Hutchiusons — Corporal Adams —
Victories in the West — Stanton the man ! — Strategy (hear ! hear ! )
arc obliged, one by one, to eat our official
high-toned assertions and words, and day after day
we drift towards putting the rebels on an equal foot
ing with ourselves. We declared the privateers to
be pirates (which they arc), and now we proffer their
exchange against our colonels and other honorable
prisoners. So one radical evil generates numberless
others. And from the beginning of the struggle
this radical evil was and is the want of earnestness,
of a firm purpose, and of a straight, vigorous policy
by the administration. Paullatim summa pctuntur
may turn out true — but for the rebels.
The publication of the English blue book, or of
official correspondence between Lord Lyons and
Lord John Russell, throws a new light on the con-
151
152 DIARY. [FEBRUARY, 1862.
duct of the English Cabinet ; and, anglophobe as I
am, I must confess that, all things considered, above
all the unhappily-justified distrust of England in
Mr. Scward's policy, — from the first day of our
troubles Lord John Russell could not act differently
from what he did. Lord John Russell had to rec
oncile the various and immense interests of England,
jeopardized by the war, with his sincere love of hu
man liberty. Therein Lord John Russell differs
wholly from Lord Palmerston, this great European
fuss-maker, who hates America. As far as it was
possible, Lord J. Russell remained faithful to the
noble (not hereditary, but philosophical) traditions
of his blood. Lord John Russell's letter to Lord
Lyons (No. 17), February 20, 1861, although full
of distrust in the future policy of Mr. Lincoln's
Cabinet towards England, is nevertheless an honor
able document for his name.
Lord J. Russell was well aware that the original
plan of Mr. Seward was to annoy and worry Eng
land. Everything is known in this world, and
especially the incautious words and conversations of
public men. Months before the inauguration, Mr.
Seward talked to senators of both parties that he
had in store " two pickled rods " for England. The
one was to be Green (always drunken), the Senator
from Missouri, on account of the colored man
Anderson ; the other Mr. Nesmith, the Senator from
Oregon, and the San Juan boundaries. Undoubted
ly the Southern senators did not keep secret the like
inimical forebodings concerning Mr. Seward's inten-
FEBRUARY, 1882. J DIARY. 153
tions towards England. Undoubtedly all this must
have been known to Lord J. Russell when he wrote
the above-mentioned letter, No. 17.
More even than Lord John Russell's, Lord Lyons's
official correspondence since November, 1800, in
spires the highest possible respect for his noble sen
timents and character. Above all, one who wit
nessed the difficulties of Lord Lyons's position here,
and how his pathway was strewn with broken glass,
and this by all kinds of hands, must feel for him
the highest and most sincere consideration. From
the official correspondence, Lord Lyons comes out a
friend of humanity and of human liberty, — just the
reverse of what he generally was supposed to be.
And during the whole Trent affair, Lord Lyons's con
duct was discreet, delicate, and generous. Events
may transform Lord Lyons into an official enemy of
the Union ; but a mind soured by human meanness
is soothingly impressioned by such true nobleness in
a diplomat and an Englishman.
Gen. Stone, of Ball's Bluff infamous massacre,
arrested. Bravo ! At the best, Stone was one of
those conceited regulars who admired slavery, and
who would have wished to save the Union in their
own peculiar way. I wish he may speak, as in all
probability he was not alone.
Sumner's resolutions infuse a new spirit in the
Constitution, and elevate it from the low ground of
a dead formula. The resolutions close the epoch of
the Stories, of the Kents, of the Curtises, and in
augurate a higher comprehension of American con-
154 DIARY. [FEBRUARY, 1862.
stitutionalism. During this session Charles Sum-
ner triumphantly and nobly annihilated the asper
sions of his enemies, representing him as a man of
one hobby, but lacking any practical ideas. His
speech on currency was among the best. Not so
with his speech about the Trent affair. It is super
ficial, and contains misconceptions concerning trea
ties, and other blunders very strange in a would-be
statesman.
Ardently devoted to the cause of justice and of
human rights, Sumner weakens the influence which
he ought to exercise, because he impresses many
with the notion that he looks more to the outside
effect produced by him than to the intrinsic value
of the subject ; he makes others suppose that he is
too fond of such effect, and, above all, of the effect
produced in Europe among the circle of his Eng
lish and European acquaintances.
It is positively asserted that Lincoln agreed to
take Mr. Seward in the Cabinet, because Weed and
others urgently represented that Mr. Seward is the
only man in the Republican party who is familiar
with Europe, with her statesmen, and their policy.
0 Lord ! 0 Lord ! And where has Seward ac
quired all this information ? Mr. Seward had not
even the first A B C of it, or of anything else con
nected with it. And, besides, such a kind of
special information is, at the utmost, of secondary
necessity for an American statesman. Marcy had
it not, and was a true, a genuine statesman. Un
doubtedly, nature has endowed Seward with
FEBRUABY, 1862.] DIARY. 155
nent intellectual qualities, and with germs for an
eminent statesman. But the intellectual qualities
became blunted by the long use of crotchets and
tricks of a politician, by the associations and influ
ence of such as "Weed, etc. ; thereby the better germs
became nipped, so to speak, in the bud. Mr. Scw-
ard's acquired information by study, by instruction,
and by reading, is quite the reverse of what in
Europe is regarded as necessary for a statesman.
Often, very often, I sorrowfully analyze and observe
Mr. Seward, with feelings like those evoked in us by
the sight of a noble ruin, or of a once rich, natural
panorama, but now marred by large black spots of
burned and dead vegetation, or by the ashes of a
volcano.
Now, Mr. Seward is beyond salvation — a " disap
pointed man," as he called himself in a conversation
with Judge Potter, M. C. ; he changed aims, and
perhaps convictions. For Mr. Seward, slavery is no
more the most hideous social disease ; he abandoned
that creed which elevated him in the confidence of
the people. Now he works to preserve as much as
possible of the curse of slavery ; he does it on the
plea of Union and conservatism ; but in truth he
wishes to disorganize the pure Republican party,
which he hates since the Chicago Convention and
since the days of the formation of the Cabinet.
Under the advice of Weed, Mr. Seward attempts to
form a (thus called) Union and conservative party,
which at the next turn may carry him into the
White House.
156 DIARY. [FEBRUARY, 1862.
Seward considers Weed his good genius ; but in
reality Weed has ruined Seward. Now Mr. Seward
supports strategy, imbecility, and McClellan. The
only explanation for me is, that Seward, participat
ing in all military counsels and strategic plans, and
not understanding any of them, finds it safer to
back McClellan, and thus to deceive others about
his own ignorance of military matters.
The press — the New York one — worse and worse ;
the majority wholly degraded to the standard of the
Herald and of the Times. The poor Tribune, daily
fading away, altogether losing that bold, lofty spirit
of initiative to which for so many years the Trib
une owed its all-powerful and unparalleled influence
over the free masses. Now, at times, the Tribune
is similar to an old, honest sexagenarian, attempting
to draw a night-cap over his ears and eyes. The
flames of the holy fire, so common once in the Trib
une, flash now only at distant, very distant epochs.
The Evening Post towers over all of them. If the
Evening Post never at a jump went as far as once
did the Tribune, the Evening Post never made or
makes a retrograde step ; but perhaps slowly, but
steadily and boldly, moves on. The Evening Post
is not a paper of politicians or of jobbers, but of
enlightened, well-informed, and strong-hearted pat
riots and citizens.
Mr. Blair, after all, is only an ambitious politi
cian. My illusion about both the brothers is wholly
dispelled and gone. I regret it, but both sustain
McClellan, both look askant on Stanton^ and belong
FEBHtTART, 1862.] DIARY. 157
to the conditional emancipationists, colonizationists,
and other RADICAL preservers of slavery. All such
form a class of superficial politicians, of compro
misers with their creed, and are corrtipters of
others.
How ardently I would prefer not to so often ac
cuse others ; but more than forty years of revolu
tionary and public life and experience have taught
me to discriminate between deep convictions and
assumed ones — to highly venerate the first, and to
keep aloof from the second. Gold is gold, and
pinchbeck is pinchbeck, in character as in metal.
McClcllan acts as if he had taken the oath to
some hidden and veiled deity or combination, by all
means not to ascertain anything about the condi
tion of the enemy. Any European if not American
old woman in pants long ago would have pierced
the veil ^ by a strong reconnoissance on Ccntreville.
Here " all quiet on the Potomac." And I hear
generals, West Pointers, justifying this colossal
offence against common sense, and against the rudi
ments of military tactics, and even science. Oh,
noble, but awfully dealt with, American people !
At times Mr. Seward talks and acts as if he
lacked altogether the perception of the terrible ear
nestness of the struggle, of the dangers and respon
sibilities of his political position, as well now before
the people as hereafter before history. Often I can
scarcely resist answering him, Beware, beware !
Lincoln belittles himself more and more. What
ever he does is done under the pressure of events,
158 DIARY. [FEBRUARY, 1862.
under the pressure of the public opinion. These
agencies push Lincoln and slowly move him, not
withstanding his reluctant heaviness and his resist
ance. And he a standard-bearer of this noble
people !
Those mercenary, ignorant, despicable scribblers
of the London Times, of the Tory Herald, of the
Saturday Review, and of the police papers in Paris,
as the Constitutionnel, the Pays, the Patrie, all of
them lie with unparalleled facility. Any one knows
that those hungry quill-heroes can be got for a good
dinner and a douceur.
I am sorry that the Americans ascribe to Louis
Napoleon and to the French people the hostility
to human rights as shown by those echappes des
bagnes de la literature. Louis Napoleon and the
French people have nothing in common with those
literary blacklegs.
The Journal des Debats, the Opinion Nationale,
the Presse, the Siecle, etc., constitute the true and
honest organs of opinion in France. In the same
way A. de Gasparin speaks for the French people
with more authority than does Michel Chevalier,
who knows much more about free trade, about
canals and railroads, but is as ignorant of the char
acter, of the spirit, and of the institutions of the
American people, as he is ignorant concerning the
man in the moon. So the lawyer Hautefcuillc must
have received a fee to show so much ill-will to the
cause of humanity, and such gigantic ignorance.
Wlio began the civil war ? is repeatedly discussed
FEBRUARY, 1862.] DIARY. 159
by those quill cut-throats and allies on the Thames
and on the Seine.
Here some smaller diplomats (not Sweden, who
is true to the core to the cause of liberty), and,
above all, the would-be fashionable galopins des le
gations, are the cesspools of secession news, picked
up by them in secesh society. Happily, the like
galopins are the reverse of the opinions of their re
spective chiefs.
What superhuman efforts are made in Congress,
and out of it, in the Cabinet, in the White House,
by Union men, — Seward imagines he leads them,
— by the weak-brained, and by traitors, to save
slavery, if not all, at least a part of it. Every con
cession made by the President to the enemies of
slavery has only one aim ; it is to mollify their
urgent demands by throwing to them small crumbs,
as one tries to mollify a boisterous and hungry dog.
By such a trick Lincoln and Seward try to save
what can be saved of the peculiar institution, to
gratify, and eventually to conciliate, the South.
This is the policy of Lincoln, of Seward, and very
likely of Mr. Blair. Such political gobe-mouche as
Doolittle and many others, are, or will be, taken in
by this manoeuvre.
Scheme what you like, you schemers, wiseacres,
politicians, and would-be statesmen, nevertheless
slavery is doomed. Humanity will have the best
against such pettifoggers as you. I know better. I
have the honor to belong to that European genera
tion who, during this half of our century, from
160 DIARY. [FEBRUARY, 1862.
Tagus and Cadiz to the "Wolga, has gored with its
blood battle-fields and scaffolds ; whose songs and
aspirations were re-echoed by all the horrible dun
geons ; by dungeons of the blood-thirsty Spanish
inquisition, then across Europe and Asia, to the
mines of Nertschinsk, in the ever-frozen Altai. We
lost all we had on earth ; seemingly we were always
beaten ; but Portugal and Spain enjoy to-day a con
stitutional regime that is an improvement on abso
lutism. France has expelled forever the Bourbons,
and universal suffrage, spelt now by the French peo
ple, is a progress, is a promise of a great democratic
future. Germany has in part conquered free speech
and free press. Italy is united, Romanism is falling
to pieces, Austria is undermined and shaky, and
broken are the chains on the body of the Russian
serf. All this is the work of the spirit of the age,
and our generation was the spirit's apostle and con
fessor. And so it will be with slavery, and all you
worshippers of darkness cannot save it.
Not the one who strikes the first blow begins a
civil war, but he who makes the striking of the
blow imperative. The Southern robbers cannot
claim exemption ; they stole the arsenals, and struck
the first blow at Sumpter. So much for the infa
mous quill-heroes of the London Times, the Herald,
and tutti quanti.
The highest crime is treason in arms, and this
crime is praised and defended by the English would-
be high-toned press. But sooner or later it will
come out how much apiece was paid to the London
FEBRUARY, 1862.] DIARY. 161
Times, the Herald, and the Saturday Review for
their venomous articles against the Union.
McClellan expelled from the army the Hutchin-
son family. It is mean and petty. Songs are the
soul and life of the camp, and McClellan's heroic
deeds have not yet found their minstrel.
After all, McClellan has organized — nothing !
McDowell has, so to speak, formed the first skele
tons of brigades, divisions, of parks of artillery, etc.
The people uninterruptedly poured in men and
treasures, and McClellan only continued what was
commenced before him.
I positively know that already in December Mr.
Lincoln began to be doubtful of McClellan's gener
alship. This doubtfulness is daily increasing, and
nevertheless Mr. Lincoln keeps that incapacity in
command because he does not wish to hurt Me Clel-
lari's feeling-s. Better to ruin the noble people, the
country ! I begin to draw the conclusion that Mr.
Lincoln's good qualities are rather negative than
positive.
Mr. Adams complains that he is kept in the dark
about the policy of the administration, and cannot
answer questions made to him in London. But the
administration, that is, Lincoln and Seward, are a
little a la Micawber, expecting what may turn up.
And, besides this., the great orator de land caprina
(Mr. Adams) deliberately degraded himself to the
condition of a corporal under Mr. Seward's orders.
Victories in the West, results of the new spirit in
the War Department. Stanton will be the man.
11
162 DIARY. [FEBRUARY, 1862.
It is a curious fact that such commanders as Hal-
leek, etc., sit in cities and fight through those under
them ; and there are ignoble flatterers trying to
attribute these victories to McClellan, and to his
strategy. As if battles could be commanded by
telegraph at one thousand miles' distance. It is
worse than imbecility, it is idiotism and strategy.
Stanton calls himself a man of one idea. How he
overtops in the Cabinet those myrmidons with their
many petty notions ! One idea, but a great and
noble one, makes the great men, or the men for
great events. Would God that the people may un
derstand Stanton, and that pettifoggers, imbeciles,
and traitors may not push themselves between the
people and Stanton, and neutralize the only man
who has the one idea to break, to crush the rebellion.
Every day Mr. Lincoln shows his want of knowl
edge of men and of things ; the total absence of
intuition to spell, to see through, and to disentangle
events.
If, since March, 1861, instead of being in the
hands of pettifoggers, Mr. Lincoln had been in the
hands of a man of one idea as is Stanton, nine-
tenths of the work would have been accomplished.
McClellan's flunkeys claim for him the victories
in the "West. It is impossible to settle which is
more to be scorned in them, their flunkeyism or
their stupidity.
Lock-jaw expedition. For any other government
whatever, in one even of the most abject favoritism,
such a humbug and silly conduct of the commander
FEBRUARY, 1862.] DIARY. 163
and of his chief of the staff would open the eyes
even of a Pompadour or of a Dubarry. Here, our
great rulers and ministers shut the more closely
their mind's (?) eyes * * * *
For the first time in one of his dispatches Mr.
Corporal Adams dares to act against orders, and
mentions — but very slightly — slavery. Mr. Ad
ams observes to his chief that in England public
opinion is very sensitive ; at last the old frcesoiler
found it out.
How this public opinion in America is unable to
see the things as they naturally arc. Now the pub
lic fights to whom to ascribe the victories in the
West. Common sense says, Ascribe them, 1st, to
the person who ordered the fight (Stanton) ; 2d,
exclusively to the generals who personally com
manded the battles and the assaults of forts. Even
Napoleon did not claim for himself the glory for
battles won by his generals when in his, Napoleon's,
absence.
For weeks McClellan and his thus called staff
diligently study international law, strategy (hear,
hear ! ), tactics, etc. His aids translate for his use
French and German writers. One cannot even
apply in this case the proverb, " Better late than
never," as the like hastily scraped and undigested
sham-knowledge unavoidably must obfuscate and
wholly confuse McClellan' s — not Napoleonic —
brains.
The intriguers and imbeciles claim the Western
victories as the illustration of McClellan's great
164 DIARY. [FEBRUARY, 1862.
strategy. Why shows he not a little strategy tinder
his nose here? Any old woman would surround
and take the rebels in Mana.ssas.
Now they dispute to Grant his deserved laurels.
If he had failed at Donelson, the strategians would
have washed their hands, and thrown on Grant the
disaster. So did Scott after Bull Run.
Mr. Lincoln, McClellan, Seward, Blair, etc., for
get the terrible responsibility for thus recklessly
squandering the best blood, the best men, the best
generation of the people, and its treasures. But
sooner or later they will be taken to a terrible ac
count even by the Congress, and at any rate by his
tory.
It is by their policy, by their support of McClel
lan, that the war is so slow, and the longer it lasts
the more human sacrifices it will devour, and the
greater the costs of the devastation. Stanton alone
feels and acts differently, and it seems that the rats
in the Cabinet already begin their nightly work
against him. These rats are so ignorant and con
ceited !
The celebrated Souvoroff was accused of cruelty
because he always at once stormed fortresses in
stead of investing them and starving out the inhab
itants and the garrisons. The old hero showed by
arithmetical calculations that his bloodiest assaults
never occasioned so much loss of human life as did
on both sides any long siege, digging, and approaches,
and the starving out of those shut up in a fortress.
This for McClellan and for the intriguing and igno
rant EATS.
MARCH, 1862.
The Africo-Amcricans — Fremont — The Orleans — Confiscation — Amer
ican nepotism — The Mcrrimac — Wooden guns — Oh shame! — Gen.
Wadsworth — The rats have the best of Stanton — McClellan goes to
Fortress Monroe — Utter imbecility — The embarkation — McClellan a
turtle — He will stick in the marshes — Louis Napoleon behaves nobly
— So does Mr. Mercier — Queen Victoria for freedom — The great
strategian — Senator Sumncr and the French minister — Archbishop
Hughes — His diplomatic activity not worth the postage on his cor
respondence — Alberoni-Seward — Love's labor lost.
MEN like this Davis, Wickliffe, and all the like
pecus, roar against the African race. The more I
see of this doomed people, the more I am convinced
of their intrinsic superiority over all their white re-
viler s, above all, over this slaveholding generation,
rotten, as it is, to the core. When emancipated, the
Africo- Americans in immense majority will at once
make quiet, orderly, laborious, intelligent, and free
cultivators, or, to use European language, an excel
lent peasantry ; when ninety-nine one-hundredths
of slaveholders, either rebels or thus called loyal,
altogether considered, as human beings are shams,
are shams as citizens, and constitute caricatures and
monsters of civilization.
Civilization ! It is the highest and noblest aim in
human destinies when it makes the man moral and
165
166 DIARY. [MARCH, 1862.
true ; but civilization invoked by, and in which strut
traitors, slaveholders, and abettors of slavery, re
minds one of De Maistre's assertion, that the devil
created the red man of America as a counterfeit to
man, God's creation in the Old World. This so-
called civilization of the slaveholders is the devil's
counterfeit of the genuine civilization.
The Africo-Americans are the true producers of
the Southern wealth — cotton, rice, tobacco, etc.
When emancipated and transformed into small far
mers, these laborious men will increase and amelio
rate the culture of the land ; and they will produce by
far more when the white shams and drones shall bo
taken out of their way. In the South, bristling with
Africo-American villages, will almost disappear filli-
busterism, murder, and the bowie knife, and other
supreme manifestations of Southern chivalrous liigh-
breeding.
Fremont's reports and defence show what a dis
order and insanity prevailed under the rule of Scott.
Fremont's military capacity perhaps is equal to zero;
his vanity put him in the hands of wily flatterers ;
but the disasters in the West cannot be credited to
him. Fremont initiated the construction of the
mortar flotilla on the Mississippi (I positively know
such is the fact), and he suggested the capture of
various forts, but was not sustained at this sham,
the head-quarters.
These Orleans have wholly espoused and share
in the fallacious and mischievous notions of the
McClellanites concerning the volunteers. Most
MARCH, 1862.] DIARY. 167
probably with the authority of their name, they
confirm McClellan's fallacious notions about the ne
cessity of a great regular army. The Orleans are
good, generous boys, but their judgment is not yet
matured ; they had better stayed at home.
Confiscation is the great word in Congress or out of
it. The property of the rebels is confiscable by the
ever observed rule of war, as consecrated by inter
national laws. When two sovereigns make war, the
victor confiscates the other's property, as represented
by whole provinces, by public domains, by public
taxes and revenues. In the present case the rebels
are the sovereigns, and their property is therefore
confiscable. But for the sake of equity, and to com
pensate the wastes of war, Congress ought to decree
the confiscation of property of all those who, being
at the helm, by their political incapacity or tricks
contribute to protract the war and increase its
expense.
Mr. Lincoln yields to the pressure of public opin
ion. A proof: his message to Congress about eman
cipation in the Border States. Crumb No. 1 thrown
— reluctantly I am sure — to the noble appetite of
freemen. I hope history will not credit Mr. Lincoln
with being the initiator.
American nepotism puts to shame the one prac
tised in Europe. All around here they keep offices
in pairs, father and son. So McClellan has a father
in-law as chief of the staff, a brother as aid, and
then various relations, clerks, etc., etc., and the
same in some other branches of the administration.
168 DIARY. [MAECH, 1862.
The Merrimac affair. Terrible evidence how ac
tive and daring are the rebels, and we sleepy, slow,
and self-satisfied. By applying the formula of in
duction from effect to cause, the disaster occasioned
by the Merrimac, and any further havoc to be made
by this iron vessel, — all this is to be credited to
McClellan.
If Norfolk had been taken months ago, then the
rebels could not have constructed the Merrimac.
Norfolk could have been easily taken any day dur
ing the last six months, but for strategy and the
maturing' of great plans ! These are the sacramen
tal words more current now than ever. Oh good-
natured American people ! how little is necessary to
humbug thee !
Oh shame ! oh malediction ! The rebels left Cen
tre ville, — which turns out to be scarcely a breast
work, with wooden guns, — and they slipped off from
Manassas.
When McClellan got the news of the evacuation,
he gravely considered where to lean his right or left
flanks, and after the consideration, two days after
the enemy wholly completed the evacuation, Mc
Clellan moves at the head of 80,000 men — to storm
the wooden guns of Centreville. Two hours after
the news of the evacuation reached the head-quar
ters, Gen. Wadsworth asked permission to follow
with his brigade, during the night, the retreating
enemy. But it was not strategy, not a matured
plan. If Gen. Wadsworth had been in command
of the army, not one of the rats from Manassas
MARCH, 1862.] DIARY. 169
would have escaped. The reasons are, that Gen.
"Wadsworth has a quick, clear, and wide-encompass
ing conception of events and things, a clear insight,
and many other inborn qualities of mind and in
tellect.
The Congress has a large number of very respect
able capacities, and altogether sufficient for the
emergencies, and the Congress would do more good
but for the impediments thrown in its way by the
double-dealing policy prevailing in Mr. Lincoln's
Cabinet and administration. The majority in Con
gress represent well the spirit of self-government.
It is a pity that Congress cannot crush or purify the
administration.
All that passes here is maddening, and I am very
grateful to my father and mother for having en
dowed me with a frame which resists the blows.
The pursuit of the enemy abandoned, the basis
of operations changed. The rats had the best of
Stanton. Utinam sim falsus prophcta, but if Stan-
ton's influence is no more all-powerful, then there
is an end to the short period of successes. Mr.
Lincoln's council wanted to be animated by a pure
and powerful spirit. Stanton was the man, but he
is not a match for impure intriguers. Also McClel-
lan goes to Fortress Monroe, to Yorktown, to the
rivers. This plan reveals an utter military imbe
cility, and its plausibility can only catch .
1st. Common sense shows that the rebels ought
to be cut off from their resources, that is, from rail
roads, and from communication with the revolted
170 DIARY. [MARCH, 1862.
States in the interior, and to be precipitated into
the ocean. To accomplish it our troops ought to
have marched by land to Richmond, and pushed the
enemy towards the ocean. Now McClellan pushes
the rebels from the extremity towards the centre,
towards the focus of their basis, — exactly what they
want.
I am sure that McClellan is allured to this strat
egy by the success of the gun-boats on the Missis
sippi. He wishes that the gun-boats may take Rich
mond, and he have the credit of it.
The Merrimac is still menacing in Hampton
Roads, and may, some day or other, play havoc with
the transports. The communications by land are
always more preferable than those by water — above
all for such a great army. A storm, etc., may do
great mischief.
McClellan assures the President, and the other
intriguers and fools constituting his supporters, that
in a few days he will throw 55,000 men on York-
town. He and his staff to do such a thing, which
would be a masterpiece even for the French mili
tary leaders and their staffs ! He, McClellan, never
knew what it was to embark an army. Those who
believe him are even greater imbeciles than I sup
posed them to be. Poor Stan ton, to be hampered
by imbecility and intrigue ! I went to Alexandria
to see the embarkation ; it will last weeks, not days.
From Yorktown to Richmond, the country is
marshy, very marshy ; McClellan, a turtle, a dasip-
pus, will not understand to move quick and to over-
MARCH, 1862.] DIARY. 171
come the impediments. Faulty as it is to drive Iho
rebels from the sea towards their centre, this false
move would be corrected by rash and decisive move
ments. But McClellan will stick in the marshes,
and may never reach Richmond by that road.
Any man with common sense would go directly
by land ; if the army moves only three miles a day
it will reach Richmond sooner than by the other
way. Such an army in a spell wrill construct turn
pike roads and bridges, and if the rebels tear up
the railroads, they likewise could be easily repaired.
Progressing in the slowest, in the most genuine Mc
Clellan manner, the army will reach Richmond with
less danger than by the Peninsula.
The future American historian ought to record in
gold and diamonds the names of those who in the
councils opposed McClcllau s new strategy. Oh !
Mr. Scward, Mr. Seward, why is your name to be
recorded among the most ardent supporters of this
strategy ?
Jeff. Davis sneers at the immense amount of
money, etc., spent by Mr. Lincoln. As he, Jeff.
Davis, is still quietly in Richmond, and his army
undestroyed, of course he is right to sneer at Mr.
Lincoln and McClellan, whom he, Jeff. Davis, kept
at bay with wooden guns.
Senator Sumner takes airs to defend or explain
McClellan. The Senator is probably influenced by
Blair. The Senator cannot be classed among trai
tors and intriguers supporting the great stratcgian.
172 DIARY. [MARCH, 1862.
Perhaps likewise the Senator believes it to be dis
tingue to side with strategy.
If the party and the people could have foreseen
that civil war was inevitable, undoubtedly Mr. Lin
coln would not have been elected. But as the cause
of the North would have been totally ruined by the
election of Lincoln's Chicago competitor, Mr. Lin
coln is the lesser of the two evils.
A great nuisance is this competition for all kinds
of news by the reporters hanging about the city, the
government, and the army. Some of these report
ers are men of sense, discernment, and character ;
but for the sake of competition and priority they
fish up and pick up what they can, what comes in
their way, even if such news is altogether beyond
common sense, or beyond probability.
In this way the best among the newspapers have
confused and misled the sound judgment of the peo
ple ; so it is in relation to the overwhelming num
bers of the rebels, and by spreading absurdities con
cerning relations with Europe. The reporters of
the Herald and of the Times are peremptorily in
structed to see the events through the perverted
spectacles of their respective bosses.
Mr. Adams gets either frightened or warm. Mr.
A. insists on the slavery question, speaks of the pro
ject of Mason and Slidell in London to offer certain
moral concessions to English anti-slavery feeling, —
such as the regulations of marriage, the repeal of
laws against manumission, etc. Mr. Adams warns
MARCH, 1862.] DIARY. 173
that these offers may make an impression in Eng
land.
When all around me I witness this revolting
want of energy, — Stanton cxcepted, — this vacilla
tion, these tricks and double-dealings in the govern
mental spheres, then I wish myself far off in Eu
rope ; but when I consider this great people outside
of the governmental spheres, then I am proud to bo
one of the people, and shall stay and fall with them.
How meekly the people accept the disgrace of
the wooden guns and of the evacuation of Manas-
sas ! It is true that the partisans of McClcllan, the
traitors, the intriguers, and the imbeciles are de
votedly at work to confuse the judgment of the
people at large.
Mr. Dayton's semi-official conversation with Louis
Napoleon shows how well disposed the Emperor was
and is. The Emperor, almost as a favor, asks for a
decided military operation. And in face of such
news from Europe, Lincoln, Seward, and Blair sus
tain the do-nothing' stratcgianl
Until now Louis Napoleon behaves nobly, and not
an atom of reproach can be made by the American
people against his policy ; and our policy many
times justly could have soured him, as the accepta
tion of the Orleans, etc. No French vessels ran
anywhere the blockade ; sccesh agents found very
little if any credit among French speculators. Very
little if any arms, munitions, etc., were bought in
France. And in face of all these positive facts, the
American wiseacres here and in Europe, all the bar-
174 DIARY. [MAKCH, 1862.
room and street politicians here and there, all the
would-be statesmen, all the sham wise, are incessant
in their speculations concerning certain invisible,
deep, treacherous schemes of Louis Napoleon against
the Union. This herd is full of stories concerning
his deep hatred of the North ; they are incessant in
their warnings against this dangerous and scheming
enemy. Some Englishmen in high position stir up
this distrust. On the authority of letters repeat
edly received from England, Senator Sunnier is
always in fits of distrust towards the policy of
France. The last discovery made by all these deep
statesmen here and in France is, that Louis Napo
leon intends to take Mexico, to have then a basis for
cooperation with the rebels, and to destroy us.
But Mexico is not yet taken, and already the allies
look askance at each other. Those great Anglo-
American Talleyrands, Metternichs, etc., bring down
the clear and large intellect of Louis Napoleon to
the atomistic proportions of their own sham brains.
I do not mean to foretell Louis Napoleon's policy in
future. Unforeseen emergencies and complications
may change it. I speak of what was done up to
this day, and repeat, not the slightest complaint can
be made against Louis Napoleon. And in justice
to Mr. Mercier, the French minister here, it must
be recorded that he sincerely seconds the open policy
of his sovereign. Besides, Mr. Mercier now openly
declares that he never believed the Americans to be
such a great and energetic people as the events
have shown them to be. I am grateful to him for
MARCH, 1862.] D I A R Y. 175
this sense of justice, shared only by few of his diplo
matic colleagues.
In one word, official and unofficial Europe, in its
immense majority, is on our side. The exceptions,
therefore, are few, and if they arc noisy, they arc
not intrinsically influential and dangerous. The
truest woman, Queen Victoria, is on the side of
freedom, of right, and of justice. This ennobles
even her, and likewise ennobles our cause. Not the
bad wishes of certain Europeans are in our way, but
our slowness, the McClcllanism and its supporters.
Quidquid delirant rcges, plectuntur achivi ! The
achivi is the people, and the McClellanists are the
reges.
Mr. Seward, elated by victories, insinuates to"
foreign powers that they may stop the " recognition
of belligerents." Oh imagination ! Such things
ought not even to be insinuated, as logic and common
sense clearly show that the foreign cabinets cannot do
it, and thus stultify themselves. Seward believes
that his rhetoric is irresistible, and will move the
cabinets of France and of England. *
Not the " recognition of belligerents ; " let the rebels
slip off from Manassas, etc. Mr. Seward would do
better for himself and for the country to give up
meddling with the operations of the war, and back
ing the bloodless campaigns of the strategian. But
Mr. Seward, carried away by his imagination, be
lieves that the cabinets will yield to his persuasive
voice, and then, oh ! what a feather in his diplomatic
176 DIARY. [MARCH, 1S62.
cap before the befogged Mr. Lincoln, and before the
people. But pia desideria.
In all the wars, as well as in all the single cam
paigns and battles, every captain deserving this
name aimed at breaking his enemy in the centre or
at seizing his basis of operations, wherefrom the
enemy draws its resources and forces. The great
strategian changed all this ; he goes directly to the
circumference instead of aiming at the heart.
Mr. Seward, answering Mr. Dayton's dispatch con
cerning his, Dayton's, conversation with Louis Na
poleon, points to Europe being likewise menaced by
revolutionists. Unnecessary spread-eagleism, and
an awful want of any, even diplomatic, tact. I hope
that Mr. Dayton, who has so much sound sense and
discernment, will keep to himself this freak of Mr.
Seward' s untamable imagination.
Under the influence of insinuations received from
his English friends, Senator Sumner said to Mr.
Mercier (I was present) that with every steamer he
expects a joint letter of admonition directed by the
French and English to our government. Mr. Mer
cier retorted, " How can you, sir, have such notions ?
you are too great a nation to be treated in this way.
Such letters would do for Greece, etc., but not for
you." I was sorry and glad for the lesson thus
given.
Archbishop Hughes was not over-successful in
France, and went off rather second-best in the opin
ion of the press, of the public, and of the Catholic,
even ultra-Montane clergy of France. All this on
MARCH, 1832.] DIARY. 177
«•
account of his conditional anti-slaverism and iiiicon-
ditional pro-slave rism. All this was easily to be
foreseen. His Eminence is in Rome, and from
Rome is to influence Spain in our favor.
Oh diplomacy ! oh times of Capucine and Jesuit
fathers and of Abbes! We, the children of the
eighteenth century, we recall you to life. I do not
suppose that the whole diplomatic activity of his
Eminence is worth the postage of his correspondence.
But Uncle Sam is generous, and pays him well. So
it is with Thurlow Weed, who tries to be economi
cal, is unsuccessful, and cries for more monish. A
schoolboy on a spree !
It seems that Weed loses not his time, and tries
with Sandford to turn a penny in Belgium. Oh dis
interested saviors of the country, and patriots !
But for this violent development of our domestic
affairs, Mr. Seward would have appeared before the
world as the mediator between the Pope and the
insubordinate European nations, sovereigns, and
cabinets.
Oh, Alberoni ! oh, imaginary ! It beats any of
the wildest poets. In justice it must be recorded,
that this great scheme of mediation was dancing be
fore Mr. Seward's imagination at the epoch when he
was sure that, once Secretary of State, his speeches
would be current and read all over the South ; and
they, the speeches, would crush and extinguish se
cession. This Mr. Seward assured one of the patri
otic members of Buchanan's expiring Cabinet.
Mr. Seward is now busy building up a conserva-
12
178 DIARY. [MARCH, 1862.
tive Union party North and South to preserve
slavery, and to crush the rampant Sumnerism, as
Thuiiow Weed calls it, and advises Seward to do so.
Mr. Seward's unofficial agents, Thurlow Weed,
his Eminence, and others, are untiring in the in
cense of their benefactor. Occasionally, Mr. Lincoln
gets a small share of it.
Sandford in Paris and Brussels, Mr. Adams and
ThurLow Weed in London, work hard to assuage
and soften the harsh odor in which Mr. Seward is
held, above all, among certain Englishmen of mark.
It seems, however, that love's labor is lost, and Mr.
Adams, scholar-like, explains the unsuccess of their
efforts by the following philosophy : That in great
convulsions and events it is always the most emi
nent men who become selected for violent and vitu
perative attacks. This is Mr. Seward's fate, but
time will dispel the falsehoods, and render him jus
tice. Well, be it so.
Weed tried hard to bring the Duke of Newcastle
over to Mr. Seward ; but the Duke seems perfectly
unmoved by the blandishments, etc. To think that
the strict and upright Duke, who knows Weed, could
be shaken by the ubiquitous lobbyist ! Eather the
other way.
One not acquainted with Mr. Seward's ardent re
publicanism may suspect him of some dictatorial
projects, to judge from the zeal with which some of
the diplomatic agents in Europe, together with the
unofficial ones there, extol to all the world Mr.
Seward's transcendent superiority over all other
MAUCH, 1862.J DIARY. 179
eminent men in America. Arc the European states
men to be prepared beforehand, or arc they to be be
fogged and prevented from judging for themselves ?
If so, again is love's labor lost. European statesmen
can perfectly take Mr. Seward's measure from his
uninterrupted and never-fulfilled prophecies, and
from other diplomatic stumblings ; and one look
sii dices European men of mark to measure a
Hughes, a Weed, a Sandford, and tutti quanti.
In Mr. Lincoln's councils, Mr. Stanton alone has
the vigor, the purity, and the simplicity of a man of
deep convictions. Stanton alone unites the clear,
broad comprehension of the exigencies of tljc na
tional question with unyielding action. He is the
statesman so long searched for by me. He, once a
friend of McClellan, was not deterred thereby from
condemning that do-nothing strategy, so ruinous
and so dishonorable. Stanton is a Democrat, and
therefore not intrinsically, perhaps not even relative
ly, an anti-slavery man, but he hesitates not now to
destroy slavery for the preservation of the Union.
I am sure that every day will make Stanton more
clear-sighted, and more radical in the question of
Union and rebellion. And Seward and Blair, who
owe their position to their anti-slavery principles,
arcades ambo, try now to save something of slavery,
and turn against Stanton.
APKIL, 1862.
Immense power of the President — Mr. Seward's Egeria — Programme
of peace — The belligerent question — Roebucks and Gregories scums
— Running the blockade — Weed and Seward take clouds for camels
— Uncle Sam's pockets —Manhood, not money, the sinews of war-
Colonization schemes — Senator Doolittle — Coal mine speculation —
Washington too near the seat of war — Blair demands the return of a
fugitive slave woman— Slavery is Mr. Lincoln's " mammy " —Ho will
not destroy her — Victories in the W<!St— The brave navy— McClel-
lan subsides in mud before Yorktown — Telegraphs for more men-
God' will be tired out! — Great strength of the people — Emancipa
tion in the District — Wade's speech — He is a monolith — Chase and
Seward — N. Y. Times — The Rothschilds — Army movements and
plans.
IF the military conduct of McClellan, from the
first of January to the day of the embarkation of
the troops for Yorktown — if this conduct were
tried by French marshals, or by the French chief
staff, or by the military authorities and chief staffs
of Prussia, Russia, and even of Austria, McClellan
would be condemned as unfit to have any military
command whatever. I would stake my right hand
on such a verdict; and here the would-be strate-
gians, the traitors, the intriguers, and the imbeciles
prize him sky-high.
Only by personal and close observation of the
inner working of the administrative machinery is it
possible to appreciate and to understand what an
180
APRIL, 1362.] DIARY. 181
immense power the Constitution locates in the hands
of a President. Far more power has he than any
constitutional sovereign — more than is the power of
the English sovereign and of her Cabinet put to
gether. In the present emergencies, such a power
in the hands of a Wade 'or of a Stanton would have
long ago saved the country.
Mr. Seward looks to all sides of the compass for a
Union party in the South, which may rise politically
against the rebels. That is the advice of Weed,
Mr. Seward's Egeria. I doubt that he will find
many, or even any. First kill the secesh, destroy
the rebel power, that is, the army, and then look
for the Union men in the South. Mr. Seward, in
his generalizations, in his ardent expectations, etc.,
etc.,- forgets to consider — at least a little — human
nature, and, not to speak of history, this terra incog
nita. Blood shed for the nationality makes it grow
and prosper ; a protracted struggle deepens its
roots, carries away the indifferent, and even those
who at the start opposed the move. All such, per
haps, may again fall off from the current of rebel
lion, but that current must first be reduced to an
imperceptible rivulet ; and Mr. Seward, sustaining
the do-nothing stratcgian, acts against himself.
Mr. Seward's last programme is, after the capture
of Richmond and of New Orleans, to issue a procla
mation — to offer terms to the rebels, to restore the
old Union in full, to protect slavery and all. For
this reason he supports McClellan, as both have the
same plan. Of such a character are the assurances
182 DIARY. [ArniL, 1862.
given by Mr. Seward to foreign diplomats and gov
ernments. He tries to make them sure that a largo
Union party will soon be forthcoming in the South,
and again sounds his vaticinations of the sacramen
tal ninety days. I am sorry for this his incurable
passion to play the Pythoness. It is impossible that
such repeated prophecies shall raise him high in the
estimation of the European statesmen. Impossible !
Impossible ! whatever may be the contrary asser
tions of his adulators, such as an Adams, a Sand-
ford, a Weed, a Bigelow, a Hughes, and others.
When Mr. Seward proudly unveiled this his pro
gramme, a foreign diplomat suggested that the Con
gress may not accept it. Mr. Seward retorted that
he cares not for Congress ; that he will appeal to the
people, who are totally indifferent to the abolition
of slavery.
Why does Mr. Seward deliberately slander the
American people, and this before foreign diplomats,
whose duty it is to report all Mr. Seward's words to
their respective governments ? Such words uttered
by Mr. Seward justify the assertions of Lord John
Russell, of Gladstone, those true and high-minded
friends of human liberty, that the North fights for
empire and not for a principle. The people who
will answer to Mr. Seward's appeal will be those
whose creed is that of the New York Herald, the
Boston Courier, the people of the Fernando and
Ben Woods, of the Vallandighams, etc.
What is the use of urging on the foreign Cab
inets — above all, England and France — to re-
APRIL, 1862.] DIARY. 183
scind the recognition of belligerents ? They can
not do it. It does not much — nay, not any —
harm, as the English speculators will risk to run
the blockade if the rebels are belligerent or not.
And besides, the English and French Cabinets may
throw in Mr. Scward's face the decisions of our own
prize courts, who, on the authority of Mr. Seward's
blockade, in their judicial decisions, treat the rebels
as belligerents. The European statesmen are more
cautious and more consequential in their acts than
is our Secretary.
As it stands now, the conduct of the English gov
ernment is very correct, and not to be complained
of. I do not speak of the infamous articles in the
Times, Herald, etc., or of the Grcgories and such
scums as the Roebucks ; but I am satisfied that Lord
John Russell wishes us no harm, and that it is our
own policy which confuses and makes suspicious
such men as Russell, Gladstone, and others of the
better stamp.
As for tlie armaments of secesh vessels in Liver
pool and the Bahamas, it is so perfectly in harmony
with the English mercantile character that it is im
possible for the government to stop it.
The English merchant generally considers it as a
lawful enterprise to run blockades ; in the present
case the premium is immense ; it is so in a twofold
manner. 1st, the immediate profits on the various
cargoes exchanged against each other by a success
ful running of the blockade ; such profits must
equal several hundred per cent. 2d, the prospec-
184 DIARY. [ APBIL, 1862.
tive profits from an eventual success of the rebellion
for such friends as are now supporting the rebels.
These prospects must be very alluring, and are
partly justified by our slow war, slow policy. I am
sure that the like armaments for the secessionists
are made by shares owned by various individuals ;
the individual risk of each shareholder being com
paratively insignificant when compared with the
prospective gains.
If Seward, McClellan, and Blair had not meddled
with Stanton, not weakened his decisions, nor befog
ged Mr. Lincoln, Richmond would be in our hands,
together with Charleston and Savannah ; and all the
iron-clad vessels built in England for secesh would
be harmless.
Mr. Weed and Mr. Seward expect Jeff. Davis
to be overthrown by their imaginary Southern
Union party. 0, wiseacres ! if both of you had only
a little knowledge of human nature — not of that
one embodied in lobbyists — and of history, then
you would be aware that if Jeff. Davis is to be de
posed it will be by one more violent than he, and
you would not speculate and take clouds for camels.
During the weeks of embarkation for Yorktown,
the thorough incapacity of McClellan's chief of the
staff was as brilliant as the cloudless sun. It maizes
one shudder to think what it will be when the cam
paign will be decidedly and seriously going on.
It is astonishing, and psychologically altogether
incomprehensible, to see persons, justly deserving to
be considered as intelligent, deny the evidence of
APRIL, 1862.] DIARY. J 85
their own senses; forbid, so to speak, their sound
judgment to act ; to be befogged by thorough imbe
ciles ; to consider incapacity as strategy, and to take
imbecility for deep, mysterious, great combinations
and plans. Even the Turks could not long be hum
bugged in such a way.
No sovereign in the world, not even Napoleon in
his palmiest days, could thus easily satisfy his mili
tary whims concerning the most costly and varie
gated material for an army, as does McClellan. He
changes his plans ; every such change is gorgeously
satisfied and millions thrown away. Guns, mortars,
transports, spades, etc., appear at his order as if
by charm ; and all this to veil his utter incapacity.
This Yorktown expedition uncovers Washington
and the North, and such a deep plan could have
been imagined only by a strategian.
"What are doing in Europe all these various
agents of Mr. Seward, and paid by Uncle Sam ? all
these Weeds, Sandfords, Hughes, Bigelows, and who
ever else may be there ? They cannot find means
in their brains to better direct, inform, or influence
the European press. Almost all the articles in our
favor are only defensive and explanatory ; the offen
sive is altogether carried by the secesh press in Eng
land and in France. But to deal offensive blows, our
agents would be obliged to stand firm on human
principles, and show up all the dastardly corruption
of slavery, of slaveholders, and of rebels. Such a
warfare is forbidden by Mr. So ward's policy ; and
perhaps if such a Weed should speak of corruption,
186 DIARY. [APRIL, 1862.
some English secesh may reprint Wilkeson's letter.
In one word, our cause in Europe is very tamely
represented and carried on. Members of the Cham
ber of Deputies in Paris complain that they can
nowhere find necessary information concerning cer
tain facts. There Seward's agents have not even
been able to correct the fallacies about the epoch of
the Morrill tariff, — fallacies so often invoked by the
secesh press, — and many other similar statements.
I shall not wonder if the public opinion in Europe
by and by may fall off -from our cause. Our de
fensive condition there justifies the assumptions of
the secesh. As we dare not expose their crimes,
the public in Europe must come to this conclu
sion, that secesh may be right, and may begin to
consider the North as having no principle.
And to think that all these agents heavily phle
botomize Uncle Sam's pockets to obtain such con
temptible results !
Many persons, some among them of influence
and judgment, still speak and speculate upon what
they call the starving of the rebellion. They calcu
late upon the comparative poverty of the rebels,
repeating the fallacious adage, that money is the
sinews of war. Money is so, but only in a limited
degree, and more limited than is generally sup
posed ; more limited even now when war is a very
expensive pastime.
This fallacy, first uttered by the aristocrat Thu-
cydides, was repeated over and over again until it
became a statesmanlike creed. But even Thucyd-
APRIL, 1862.] DIARY. 187
ides gave not to that dictum such a general sense,
and Macchiavelli scorned the fallacy and exposed it.
When poor, the Spartans have been the bravest.
The historical halo surrounding the name of Sparta
originated at that epoch when the use of money
and of gold had been almost forbidden. The wealth
of Athens began after the victories over the Per
sians ; but those victories were won when the Athe
nians were comparatively poor. So it was with the
Romans until the subjugation of Carthage, and in
modern Europe the Swiss, etc., etc., etc.
Manhood in a people, and self-sacrifice, are the
genuine sinews of war ; wealth alone saved no na
tion from disgrace and from death, nay, often accel
erated the catastrophe.
The colonization of Africo- Americans is still dis
cussed; very likely inspired by Seward and by his
Yucatan schemes. Senator Doolittle runs himself
down at a fearful rate. I regret Doolittle's mistake.
Those colonizers forget that if they should export
even 100,000 persons a year, an equal number will
be yearly born at home, not to speak of other im
possibilities. If carried on on a small scale, this
scheme amounts to nothing ; and on a grand scale
it is altogether impossible, besides being as stupid
as it is recklessly cruel. Only those persons insist
on colonization who hate or dread general emanci
pation.
When the slaves shall be emancipated, then the
owners of plantations will be forced to offer very
acceptable terms to the newly made free laborers to
188 DIARY. [APRIL, 1862.
have their plantations cultivated, which otherwise
must become waste and useless lands, and the plant
ers themselves poor starving wretches. With very
little of governmental interference, the mutual rela
tion between planter and laborer can be regulated,
and the planter will be the first to oppose coloniza
tion.
Look from whatever side you like, a colonization
schemer is a cruel deceiver, he is an enemy of eman
cipation, and if he claims to be an emancipator then
he is an enemy of the planter and of the prosperity
of the southern region.
Besides, the present scheme of colonization to
Chiriqui is an infamous speculation to help some
Ambrosio Thompson to work coal mines in that
part of Central America. That individual has a
grant for some lands in Chiriqui, and there these
poor victims are to be exported. The grant itself
is contested by the New Grenadian government.
Those poor coolies will be the prey of speculators ;
there will arise claims against the Grenadian gov
ernment — a rich mine for lobbyists and claimants.
Infamy ! and these fathers of the country are as
blind as moles. Central America is always in con
vulsions, and of course the colonists will be robbed
by every party of those semi-savages. The colonists
being Methodists, etc., will be pointed out by the
stupid Catholic clergy as being heretics and mis
creants.
Washington's proximity to the theatre of war in
APRIL, 1832.] DIARY. 189
Virginia is the greatest impediment for rapid move
ments ; it is the ruin of generals and of armies.
Being within reach of the seat of government
and of the material means, the generals arc* never
ready, but always have something to complete,
something to ask for, and so days after days elapse.
In all other countries and governments of the world
the commanders move on, and the objects of secon
dary necessity are sent after them.
In all other countries and wars the principal aim
of commanders is to become conspicuous by rapidity
of movements. The paramount glory is to have
achieved and obtained important results with com
paratively limited means. Here, the greater the
slowness with which they move, the greater captains
they are ; and the more expensive their operations,
the surer they are of the applause of the adminis
tration, and of a great many f .
After all, the above is the result of pre-existing
causes. Slowness, indecision, and waste of money,
are the prominent features of this administration.
Stanton excepted, I again think of the dictum of
Professor Steffens, and every day believe it more.
Mr. Blair worse and worse ; is more hot in sup
port of McClellan, more determined to upset Stanton,
and I heard him demand the return of a poor fugi
tive slave woman to some of Blair's Maryland friends.
Every day I am confirmed in my creed that who
ever had slavery for mammy is never serious in the
effort to destroy it. "Whatever such men as Mr.
Lincoln and Mr. Blair will do against slavery, will
190 DIARY. [APRIL, 1862.
never be radical by their own choice or conviction,
but will be done reluctantly, and when under the
unavoidable pressure of events.
Mr. Seward restive and bitter against all who
criticise. Mr.- Seward assumes that everybody does
his best, and ought therefore to be applauded.
But Mr. Seward forgets the proverb about hell
being paved with good intentions. In this terrible
emergency the people want men who really do the
best, and not those who only try and intend to do it.
McClellan had the full sway so long — appointed
so many, perhaps more than sixty, brigadier generals
— that it is not astonishing when those appointees
prefer rather not to see for themselves, but blindly
" hurrah " for their creator.
Victories in the West, triumphantly establishing
the superiority of our soldiers in open battle-fields,
and the superiority of all generals who are distant
from any contact with Washington, as Pope, Grant,
Curtis, Mitchell, Sigel, and others. The brave
navy, — this pure democratic element which assures
the greatest results, and makes the less laudatory
noise. The navy* is admirable; the navy is the
purest and most glorious child of the people.
The destruction of the rebellion saves the future
generations of the Southern whites. Secession
would for centuries have bred and raised only formi
dable social hyenas.
McClellan subsided in mud before Yorktown.
Any other, only even half-way, military capacity
commanding such forces would have made a lunch
APRIL, 1862.] DIARY. 191
of Yorktown. But our troops are to dig, perhaps
their graves, to the full satisfaction of Mr. Lincoln,
Mr. Seward, and Mr. Blair.
McClcllan telegraphs for more men, and he has
more already than he can put in action,' and more
than he has room for. He subsides in digging.
The rebels will again fool him as they fooled him
in Manassas. If McClcllan could know anything,
then he would know this — that nothing is so des
tructive to an army as sieges, as diggings, and
camps, and nothing more disciplines and re-invigo
rates men, makes them true soldiers, than does
marching and fighting. Poor Stanton ! how he must
suffer to be overruled by imbeciles and intriguers.
McClellan telegraphing for reinforcements plainly
shows how unniilitary are his brains. lie and a
great many here believe that the greater the mass of
troops, the surer the victory. History mostly teach
es the contrary ; but speak to American wiseacres
about history ! He, McClellan, and others on his
side, ignore the difficulty of handling or swinging an
army of 100,000 men.
A good general, confident in his troops, will not
hesitate to fight two to three. But McClellan feels
at ease when he can, at the least, have two to one.
In Manassas he had three to one, and conquered —
wooden guns ! We will see what he will conquer
before Yorktown.
Louis Napoleon always well disposed, but of
course he cannot swallow Mr. Se ward's demand
about belligerents. I am so glad and so proud that
192 DIARY. [APRIL, 1862.
up to this day events justify my conscience in the
French policy, although our policy may tire not only
Louis Napoleon, but tire the God whom we worship
and invoke. I should not wonder if God, tired by
such McClellans, Lincolns, Sewards, Blairs, etc.,
finally gives us the cold shoulder. This demand
concerning belligerents is a diplomatic and initiative
step made by Mr. Seward ; it is unsuccessful, as are
all his initiatives, and no wonder.
Mr. Lincoln, incited by Mr. Seward and by Mr.
Blair, overrules the opinion of the purest, the ablest,
and the most patriotic men in Congress — that of
Stanton, and of the few good generals unbefogged
by McClellanism. Such a power as the Constitution
gives to a President is the salvation of the people
when in the hands of a Jackson, but when in the
hands of a Lincoln, ! i
The muscular strength of the American people,
and the strength of its backbone, beat all the Her-
culeses and Atlases supporting the globe. Any
other people would have long ago broke down under
the policy and the combined weight of Lincoln, Sew
ard, and McClellan.
Mr. Lincoln is forced out again from one of his
pro-slavery entrenchments ; he was obliged to yield,
and to sign the hard-fought bill for emancipation in
the District of Columbia ; but how reluctantly, with
what bad grace he signed it ! Good boy ; he wishes
not to strike his mammy; and to think that the
friends of humanity in Europe will credit this
emancipation not where it is due, not to the noble
APRIL, 1862.] DIARY. 193
pressure exercised by the high-minded Northern
masses, but to this Kentucky .
Senator Wade made a powerful speech in relation
to the arrest of General Stone. It was powerful,
patriotic, and rises to the skies over the Lilliputian
oratory of the thus-called scholars, etc. "Wade is a
monolith, — he is cut out full in a rock.
It seems that the new law increasing the number
of judges for the Supreme Court weakened many
backbones. Congress ought to have added the
clause that a senator can be nominated only after
six years from the day of the promulgation.
Mr. Scward again chalked before the dazzled eyes
of foreign powers Certain future military opera
tions ; but again events have been so impolite as to
upturn Mr. Seward's prophecies.
The report of the Senate committee on the de
struction of Norfolk speaks of the " insane delu
sion " of the administration. I am proud to have
considered it in the same light about a year ago.
Mr. Thouvenel politely but logically refuses to
acquiesce in Mr. Seward's demand concerning the
belligerents. Thouvcnel's reasons arc plausible.
The support given to strategy by Mr. Seward, —
that support does more mischief to us than do all the
pirates and all the violations of blockade. Let us
take Richmond, — a thing impossible with McClellan,
— and take by land Charleston, Savannah, etc.; then
the pirates and belligerents are strangulated. And
— as says Gen. Sherman — Savannah and Charles
ton could have been taken several months ago.
194 DIARY. [APRIL, 1362.
Orders from Washington forbade to do it ; and it
would be curious to ascertain how far Mr. Seward
is innocent in the perpetration of these orders.
Chase and Seward dear-dearing each other!
Amusing ! Kilkenny cats ! At this game Seward
will have the best of Chase, who is not a match for
tricks.
The New York Times attacks Capt. Dahlgren, of
the Navy Yard. It is in the nature of the " little
villain " to bespatter men of such devotion, patriot
ism, and eminent capacity as is Captain Dahlgren.
Thurlow Weed calls the Tribune " infernal," be
cause it wishes a serious war, and thus prevents the
raising of a Union party in thp South, so flippantly
looked for by him and Mr. Seward, his pupil. I see
the time coming when all these gentlemen of the
concessions, of the not-hurting policy, — when all
these conservative seekers for the Union party will
try, Pilatus-like, to wash their hands of the innocent
blood ; but you shall try, and not succeed, to white
wash your stained hands ; you have less excuses on
your side than had the Roman proconsul on his side.
When Mr. Mercier was in Richmond, some of the
rebel leaders and generals told him that they be
lieved not their senses on learning that McClellan
was going to Yorktown ; that he never could have
selected a better place for them, and that they were
sure of his destruction on the Peninsula.
Perhaps McClellan wished to try his hand and re
hearse the siege of Sebastopol.
If McClellan' s ignorance of military history were
APRIL, 1862.] DIARY. 195
not so well established, he would know that since
Archimedes, down to Todlebcn, more genius was
displayed in the defence than in the attack of any
place. The making of approaches, ' parallels, etc.,
is an affair of engineering school routine. Napo
leon took Toulon rather as an artillerist, who, having,
calculated the reach of projectiles, put his battery
on a spot wherefrom he shelled Toulon. Napoleon
took Mantua by destroying the Austrian army which
hastened to the relief of the fortress. But the great
American strategian knows better, and satisfies (as
said above) the rebels.
The New York Herald, the New York Times, and
other staunch supporters of McClellan, again and
again trumpet that the rebels fear McClellan, that
they consider him to be the ablest general opposed
to them. The rebels are smart, and so is their ally,
the New York Herald. As for the Times, it is only
a flunkeying " little villain."
McDowell, Banks, Fremont have about 70,000
men ; the last two are nearly at the head of the
Shenandoah valley ; they could unite with McDow
ell, and march and take Richniond. They beg to
be ordered to do it, and so wishes Stanton ; but,
fatally befogged by McClellan, by McClcllan's clique
in the councils, or by strategians, Lincoln emphati
cally forbids any junction, any movement ; the
President forbids McDowell to take Frcdericksburg,
or to throw a bridge across the river. And thus
McClellan prevents any glorious military operation ;
is losing in the nmd a hundred men daily by disease,
196 DIARY. [APBii,, 1563.
and Mr. Lincoln — still infatuated. But infatua
tion is the disease of small and weak brains.
Rothschild in Paris, and very likely the Roths
childs in London, are for the North. But if the
Rothschilds show that they well understand and
respect the Old Testament, whose spirit is anti-
slavery, they show they understand better the true
Christian spirit than do the Christians. The Roths
childs show themselves more thoroughly of our cen
tury than are such Michel Chevaliers, or such im
pure Roebucks, and all the supporters of free trade
in human flesh.
McClellan's supporters, and such strategians as
Blair and Seward, assert that McClellan's plan was
ruined by not sending McDowell to Gloucester ;
that then the whole rebel army would have been
caught in a trap. That silly plan to go to the Pe
ninsula is defended in a still more silly way.
By McDowell's going to Gloucester, Washington
would have been wholly at the mercy of an army
of thirty to forty thousand men ; the celebrated
defences of Washington, this result of the united
wisdom of Scott and McClellan, facilitating to the
rebel army a raid on Washington.
Farther ; McClellan, in concocting and maturing'
his thus called plans, probably believes that the
rebels will do just the thing which, in his calcula
tions, he wishes them to do ; and such erroneous
suppositions arc the sole basis of his plans. But
th^ rebels repeatedly showed themselves by far too
smart for his Napoleonic brains ; and besides, not
APRIL, 1862.] DIART. 197
much -wit to the rebel generals was necessary to see
through and through what the great Napoleon was
about, by ordering McDowell to Gloucester. Of
course, the rebel generals would not have had the
politeness towards McClellan to sheepishly accede
to his wishes, and go into the trap. The whole plan
was worse than childish, and I am glad to barn
that several generals showed brains to condemn it.
The whole plan was up to the comprehension of Mc-
Clcllanitcs, of consummate stratcgians in McClcl-
lan's official tross, for those in the Cabinet and out
of it.
Would God that all this ends not in disasters.
If ii ends well it will be the first time success has
crowned such transcendent incapacity.
MAY, 1862.
Capture of New Orleans — The second siege of Troy — Mr. Seward lights
his lantern to search for the Union-saving party— Subserviency to
power — Vitality of the people — Yorktown evacuated — Battle of
Williamsburg — Great bayonet charge! — Heintzclman and Hooker
— McClcllan telegraphs that the enemy outnumber him — The terri
ble enemy evacuate "VVilliamsburg — The track of truth begins to be
lost — Oh Napoleon ! — Oh spirit of Berthier ! — Dayton not in favor
— Events are too rapid for Lincoln — His integrity — Too tender of
men's feelings — Halleck — Ten thousand men disabled by disease —
The Bishop of Orleans — The rebels retreat without the knowledge
of McNapoleon — Hunter's proclamation — Too noble for Mr. Lincoln
— McClellan again subsides in mud — Jackson defeats Banks, who
makes a masterly retreat — Bravo, Banks ! — The aulic council fright
ened — Gov. Andrew's letter — Sigel — English opinion — Mr. Mill —
Young Europa — Young Germany — Corinth evacuated — Oh, gener
alship ! — McDowell grimly persecuted by bad luck.
THE capture of New Orleans. The undaunted
bravery of the Navy — this most beautiful leaf in
the American history. The Navy fights ' without
talk and strategy, because it does not look to win
the track to the White House. The capture of New
Orleans may lead the rebels to evacuate Yorktown
and to fool the great strategian.
It is a very threatening symptom, that no genuine
harmony — nay, no sympathy — exists between the
best, the purest, the most intelligent, the most ener
getic members of both the Houses of Congress and
198
MAY, 1862.] DIARY. 199
the President, including the leading spirit of his
Cabinet. The New York Herald is the principal
supporter of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward ; in the
Congress their supporters are the Democrats, and
all those who wish to make concessions to the South,
who ardently wish to preserve slavery, and in any
way to patch up the quarrel.
In times as trying as are the present ones, such a
shameful and dangerous anomaly must, in the long
run, destroy either the government or the nation.
If it turns out differently here, the exclusive reason
thereof will be the great vitality of the people. All
the deep and dangerous wounds inflicted by the pol
icy of the administration will be healed by the vig
orous, vital energy of the people.
" For Heaven's sake finish quick your war ! "
Such are the exclamations — nay, the prayers —
coming from the French statesmen, as Fould and
others, from our devoted friends, as Prince Napo
leon, and from all the famishing, but nevertheless
nobly-behaving, operatives in England. And here
McClellan inaugurates before Yorktown a second
siege of Troy or of Sebastopol ; Lincoln forbids tho
junction of McDowell with Banks and Fremont, by
which Richmond could be easily taken from the
west side, where it ought to be attacked ; and Mr.
Seward reads the like dispatches and backs McClcl-
lan ; Mr. S. lights his lantern in search North and
South of the Union-saving party !
Speak to me of subserviency to power by Euro
pean aristocrats, courtiers, etc. ! What almost
200 DIARY. [MAT, 1862.
every day I witness here of subserviency of influen
tial men to the favored and office-distributing power,
all things compared and considered, beats whatever
I saw in Europe, even in Russia at the Nicolean
epoch.
General Cameron, in his farewell speech, said
that at the beginning of the civil war General Scott
told him, Cameron, that he, Scott, never in his life
was more pained than when a Virginian reminded
him of his paramount duties to his State. I take
note of this declaration, as it corroborates what a
year ago I said in this diary concerning the disas
trous hesitations of General Scott.
It is said that Turtschininoff is all in all in Gen
eral Mitchell's command. Turtschininoff is a gen
uine and distinguished officer of the staff, and edu
cated in that speciality so wholly unknown to West-
Pointers. Several among the foreigners in the
army are thoroughly educated officers of the staff,
and would be of great use if employed in the
proper place. But envy and know-nothingism are
doubly in their way. Besides, the foreign officers
have no tenderness for the Southern cause and
Southern chivalry, and would be in the cause with
their whole heart.
By the insinuations of an anonymous correspon
dent in the Tribune, Mr. Seward tries to re-estab
lish his anti-slavery reputation. But how is it that
foreign diplomats, that the purest of his former
political friends, consider him to be now the savior
of what he once persecuted in his speeches ?
MAT, 1862.} DIARY. 201
At every step this noble people vindicates and
asserts the vitality of self-government, continually
jeopardized by the inexhaustible errors of the policy
followed by the master-spirits in the administration.
European doctors, prophets, vindictive enemies like
the London Times, the Saturday Review, etc., and
the French journals of the police, all of them are
daily — nay, hourly — baffled in their expectations
— paper money and no bankruptcy, no inflation,
bonds equal to gold, etc., etc. And all this, not
because there is any great or even small statesman
or financier at the head of the administration, but
because the people at large have confidence in them
selves, in their own energies ; because they have
the determination to succeed, and not to be bank
rupt ; not to discredit their own decisions. All
these phenomena, so new in the history of nations,
are incomprehensible to European wiseacres ; they
are too much for the hatred and dulness of the
Europeans in France, England, and for that of the
many Europeans here.
Yorktown evacuated ! — under the nose of an
army of 160,000 men, and within the distance of a
rifle shot! — evacuated quietly, of course, during
several days. One cannot abstain from saying
Bravo ! to the rebel generals. Their high capacity
forces the mind to an involuntary applause. Trai
tors, intriguers, and imbeciles applaud, extol the
results of the bloodless strategy. McClellan is used
by the rebels only to be fooled by them. It must be
so. It is one proof more of the transcendent capacity
202 DIARY. [MAT, 1863.
H
of the strategian, and, above all, of the capacity and
efficiency of the chief of the staff of the great army.
Such an operation as that of Yorktown, anywhere
else, would be considered as the highest disgrace ;
here, glorifications of strategy. McClellan's bulle
tins from Yorktown describe the rebel fortifications
as being almost impregnable. Of course impregna
ble ! but only to him.
Battle at Williamsburg ; and McClellan and his
so perfect staff altogether ignorant of the whole
bloody but honorable affair as fought against terrible
odds by Heintzelman and Hooker; but the great
Napoleon's bulletin mentions a real — Oh hear!
hear the great Mars! — charge with the bayonet,
made at the other extremity of Williamsburg, and
in which from twenty to forty men were killed !
Heintzelman's and Hooker's personal conduct,
and that of their troops, was heroic beyond name.
McClellan ignored the battle ; ignored what was
going on, and, as it is said, gave orders to Sumner
not to support Heintzelman.
McClellan telegraphs that the enemy far outnum
bers him (fears count doubly), but that he will
do his utmost and his best. This Napoleon of the
New York Herald's manufacture in everything is
the reverse of all the leaders and captains known
in history : all of them, when before the battle
they addressed their soldiers, represented the enemy
as inferior and contemptible ; after the battle was
won, the enemy was extolled.
From the first of his addresses to this his last dis-
MAT, 1962.] DIARY. 203
patch from Williamsburg, McClellan always speaks
of the terrible enemy whom he is to encounter ; and
in this last dispatch he tries to frighten not only his
army, but the whole country. During the night the
terrible enemy evacuated Williamsburg ; McClellan
breathes more free, takes fresh courage, and his bul
letin estimates the enemy's forces at 50,000.
The track of truth begins to be lost. By compar
ing dates, bulletins, and notes, it results that at the
precise minute when McClellan telegraphed his wail
conc3rning the large numbers of the enemy and the
formidable fortifications of Williamsburg, the rebels
were evacuating them, pressed and expelled there
from by Hooker, Kearney, and Ilcintzelman. Oh
Napoleon ! Oh spirits not only of Berthier and of
Gneisenau, but of the most insignificant chiefs of
staffs, admire your caricature at the head of the
army commanded by this freshly-backed Napoleon !
A foreign diplomat was in McClellan' s tent before
Yorktown, on the eve of the day when the rebels
wholly evacuated it. One of McClellan's aids sug
gested to the general that the comparative silence
of the rebel artillery might forebode evacuation.
" Impossible ! " answered the New York Herald's
Napoleon. " I know everything that passes in their
camp, and I have them fast." (I have these details
from the above-mentioned diplomat.) In the same
minute, when the strategian spoke in this way, at
least half of the rebel army had already withdrawn
from Yorktown. Comments thereupon are super
fluous.
204 D I A E Y. [MAT, 1862.
Dayton, from Paris, very sensibly objects to the pol
icy of insisting that England and France shall annul
their decision concerning the belligerents. Dayton
considers such a demand to be, for various reasons,
out of season. I am sure that Dayton is respected
by Louis Napoleon and by Thouvenel on account of
his sound sense and rectitude, although he parleys
not French. Dayton must impress everybody differ
ently from that French parleying claims' prosecutor
and itinerant agent of a sewing machine, who break
fasts in Brussels with Leopold, and the same day
dines in Paris with Thouvenel, and may take his
supper in h — 1, so far as the interest of the cause is
concerned. But Dayton seems not to be in favor
with the department.
The admirers of McClellan assert that one parallel
digged by him was sufficient to frighten the rebels
and force them to evacuate. Good for what it is
worth for such mighty ignorant brains. The mor
tars, the hundred-pounders, frightened the rebels ;
they break down not before parallels, strategy, or
Napoleon, but before the intellectual superiority of
the North, in the present case embodied in mortars
and other armaments.
Following the retreating enemy, McClellan loses
more prisoners than he makes from the enemy. A
new and perfectly original, perfectly sui generis
mode of warfare, but altogether in harmony with all
the other martial performances of the pet of the
New York Herald, of Messrs. Seward and Blair, and
of the whole herd of intriguers and imbeciles.
MAT, 1862 ] DIARY. 205
People who approach him say that Mr. Lincoln's
conceit groweth every day. I guess that Seward
carefully nurses the weed as the easiest way to domi
nate over and to handle a feeble mind.
Since Mr. Mercier judges by his own eyes, and
not by those of former various Washington associa
tions, his inborn soundness and perspicacity have the
upper hand. He is impartial and just to both par
ties ; he is not bound to have against the rebels feel
ings akin to mine, but he is well disposed, and
wishes for the success of the Union.
The events are too grand and too rapid for
Lincoln. It is impossible for him to grasp and to
comprehend them. I do not know any past histori
cal personality fully adequate to such a task. Hap
pily in this occurrency, the many, the people at
large, by its grasp and forwardness, supplies and
neutralizes the inefficiency or the tergiversations,
intrigues and double-dealings of the few, of the
official leaders, advisers, etc.
I willingly concede to Mr. Lincoln all the best and
most variegated mental and intellectual qualities, all
the virtues as claimed for him by his eulogists and
friends. I would wish to believe, as they do, Mr.
Lincoln to be infallible and impeccable. But all
those qualities and virtues represented to form the
residue of his character, all shining when in private
life, some way or other are transformed from posi
tives into negatives, since Mr. Lincoln's contact with
the pulsations and the hurricane of public life.
Thus Mr. Lincoln's friends assert that all his efforts
206 DIARY. [MAT, 1862.
tend to conciliate parties and even individuals.
This candor was beneficial and efficient in the court
or bar-rooms, or around a supper table in Springfield.
It was even more so, perhaps, when seasoned with
stories more or less * * . * But one who tries
to conciliate between two antipodic principles, or
between pure and impure characters, unavoidably
must dodge the principal points at issue. Such is
the stern law of logic. Who dodges, who biasses,
unavoidably deviates from that straight and direct
way at the end of which dwells truth. Further:
feeble, expcctative and vacillating minds, deprived
of the faculty to embrace in all its depth and exten
sion the task before them, — such minds cannot have
a clear purpose, nor the firm perception of ways and
means leading to the aim, and still less have they the
sternness of conviction so necessary for men dealing
with such mighty events, on which depend the life
and death of a society. Such men hesitate, post
pone, bias and deviate from the straight way. Such
men believe themselves in the way to truth, when
they are aside of it. It results therefrom, that when
certain amiable qualities, such as conciliation, a lit
tle dodging, hesitation, etc., are practised in private
life and in a very restrained area, their deviations
from truth are altogether imperceptible, and they are
then positive good qualities, nay, virtues. But such
qualities, transported and put into daily friction with
the tempestuous atmosphere of human events, lose
their ingenuousness, their innocence, their good-na-
MAT, 1862.] DIARY. 207
turcdness ; the imperceptibility of their intrinsic de
viation becomes transparent and of gigantic dimen
sions.
Mr. Lincoln's crystal-pure integrity prevented not
the most frightful dilapidation, nay, robbing of the
treasury by contractors, etc., etc. Nor has it kept
pure his official household. His friend Lamon and
the to-be-formed regiments ; the splendid equipages
and coupes of his youthful secretaries, to be sure,
came not from Springfield, etc., etc., nor sees he
through the rascally scheme of the Chiriqui coloni
zation.
Mr. Lincoln, his friends assert, does not wish to
hurt the feelings of any one with whom he has to
deal. Exceedingly amiable quality in a private in
dividual, but at times turning almost to be a vice in
a man entrusted with the destinies of a nation. So
he never could decide to hurt the feelings of Mc-
Clcllan, and this after all the numerous proofs of his
incapacity. But Mr. Lincoln hurts thereby, and in
the most sensible manner, the interests, nay, the
lives, of the twenty millions of people. I am sure
that McClellan may lose the whole army, and why
not if he continues as he began ? and Mr. Lincoln
will support and keep him, as to act otherwise
would hurt McClellan's, Marcy's, Seward's, and per
haps Blair's feelings.
Finally, Mr. Lincoln, advised, they say, by Mr.
Seward, holds in contempt public opinion as man
ifested by the press, with the exception of the in
cense burnt to him by the New York Herald. If
208 DIARY. [MAT, 1862.
this is true, Mr. Lincoln's mind is cunningly be
fogged.
It is very soothing for the quiet of private life
to ignore newspapers ; but all over Europe men in
power, sovereigns and ministers, carefully and daily
study and watch the opinions of the newspapers,
and principally of those which oppose and criticise
them.
Such, Mr. Lincoln, is the wisdom of the truly ex
perienced statesman. Better ask Louis Napoleon
than Seward.
I am astonished that concerning Mexico Louis
Napoleon was taken in by Almonte. Experience
ought to have fully made him familiar with the
general policy of political refugees. This policy
was, is, and will be always based on imaginary facts.
Political refugees befog themselves and befog
others. And this Mr. de Saligny must be a d ;
Louis Napoleon ought to expel him from the service.
Halleck likewise seems to lay the track to the
White House. Nothing has been done since he
took the command in person. Halleck, as does also
McClellan, tries to make all his measures so sure,
so perfect, that he misses his aim, and becomes
fooled by the enemy. In war, as in anything else,
after having quickly prepared and taken measures,
a man ought to act, and rely as much as possible on
fortune — that is, on his own acuteness — how to
cut the knot when he meets it in his path.
Halleck before Corinth, and McClellan before
Manassas and Yorktown, both spend by far more
MAY, 1882.] DIARY. 209
time than it took Napoleon from Boulogne and Bre-
tagnc to march into the heart of Germany, surround
and capture Mack at Ulm, and come in view of Vi
enna.
The French and English naval officers in the Mis
sissippi assured our commanders that it was impos
sible to overcome the various defences erected by the
rebels. Our men gave the lie to those envious fore
bodings. McClellan, in a dispatch, assures the Sec
retary of War that he, McClellan, will take care of
the gunboats. Risum tenealis.
The most contemptible flunkeys on the face of the
earth are the wiseacres, and the thus-called framers
of public opinion. Until yet McClellan, literally,
has not stood by when a cartridge was burned, and
they sing hosanna for him.
Ten thousand men have been disabled by diseases
before Yorktown ; add to it the several thousands
in a similar way disabled in the camp before Manas-
sas, and it makes more than would have cost two
battles, fought between the Rappahannock and Rich
mond, — battles which must have settled the ques
tion.
Although ultra-Montane, the Bishop of Orleans
nobly condemns- slavery. The Bishop's pastoral is
an answer to H. E., Archbishop of New York.
The French bishop therein is true to the spirit of
the Catholic church. The Irish archbishop, com
pared to him, appears a dabbler in Romanism.
During the administration of Pierce and of Bu
chanan, the Democratic senators ruled over the Pres-
14
210 DIARY. IMAT,1862.
ident and the Cabinet. Perhaps it is not as it ought
to be ; but for the salvation of the country it were
desirable that a curb be puj; on Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Sew-
ard, Mr. Blair, by the Republican senators, by men
like Wade, Wilson, Chandler, Grimes, Fessenden,
Hale, and others.
The retreat of the rebels was masterly conducted,
and their pursuit by McClellan has no name. No
where has this Napoleon got at them. The affair at
Williamsburg was bravely done by Heintzelman and
Hooker ; but it was done without the knowledge of
-McNapoleon, and contrary to his expectations and
strategy. This he confesses in one of his masterly
bulletins. Perhaps McNapoleon ignored Heintzel-
man's corps' heroic actions, because neither Heint
zelman, nor Hooker, nor Kearney worship strategy,
and the deep, well-matured plans of Me.
General Hunter's proclamation in South Carolina
is the greatest social act in the course of this war.
How pale and insignificant are Mr. Lincoln's disqui
sitions aside of that proclamation, which is greeted
in heaven by angels and cherubim — provided they
are a reality.
Of course Mr. Lincoln overrules General Hun
ter's proclamation. It is too human, too noble, too
great, for the tall Kentuckian. Many say that Sew-
ard, Blair, Seaton from the Intelligencer, and other
Border State patriots, pressed upon Lincoln. I am
sure that it gave them very little trouble to put Mr.
Lincoln straight with slaveocracy. Hence-
MAT, 1862.] DIARY. 211
forth every Northern man dying in the South is to
be credited to Mr. Lincoln !
Mr. Lincoln again publishes a disquisition, and
points to the signs of the times. Bnt does Mr. Lin
coln perceive other, more awful, signs of the times ?
Does he see the bloody handwriting on the wall,
condemning his unnatural, vacillating, dodging pol
icy?
All things considered, it will not be astonishing
in Europe if they lose patience and sneer at the
North, when they learn that McClellan is continually
doing strategy ; when they will read his bulletins ;
when they will find out that from West Point to
Richmond he pursued the enemy at the enormous
speed of two miles a day, — and that of course
nobody was hurt, — and finally, that, surrounded
by a brilliant and costly staff, he was ignorant of
the condition of the roads, and of the existence of
marshes and swamps into which he plunged the
army.
The President repeatedly speaks of his strong will
to restore the Union. Very well ; but why not use
for it the best, the most decided, and the most thor
ough means and measures ?
Continually I meet numbers and numbers of sol
diers who are discharged because disabled in the
camps during winter. Thus McClellan's bloodless
strategy deprived several thousands of their health,
without in the least hurting the enemy. And daily
I meet numbers of able-bodied Africo- Americans,
who would make excellent soldiers. I decided to
212 DIARY. [MAT, 1862.
try to form a regiment of the Africo-Americans,
and, after whipping the F. F. V.'s, establish, beyond
doubt, the perfect equality of the thus called races.
McClellan subsides in mud, — digs, — and the
sick list of the army increases hourly at a fearful
ratio. And McClellan refuses to slaves admittance
within his lines. If, at least, McClellan was a fight
ing general ; but a mud-mole as he .
Any other general in any other country, in Asia, in
Africa, etc., would use any elements whatever within
his grasp, by using which he could strengthen his
own and weaken the enemy's resources. McNapo-
leon knows better !
One of the best diplomatic documents by Mr.
Seward is that on Mexico ; and so is also the policy
pursued by him. Why does Mr. Seward dabble in
war and strategy at home ?
McClellan digs, and by his wailings has disorgan
ized the corps of McDowell, and of Banks, who re
treats and is pressed by Jackson. The men who
advised, or the McClellan worshippers who pre
vented the union of McDowell with Banks and Fre
mont,- are as criminal as any one can be in Mr.
Lincoln's councils.
Now Jackson is reorganized ; he penetrated be
tween Fremont and Banks, who were sorely weak
ened by transferring continually divisions from one
to another army, and this between the Chickahom-
iny and the lower Shenandoah.
New diplomatic initiative by Mr. Seward. France
and England are requested to declare to the rebels
MAT, 1862.] DIARY. 213
that they have no support to expect from the above-
mentioned powers.
This initiative would be splendid if it could suc
ceed ; but it cannot, and for the same logical rea
sons as failed the recent initiative about belligerents.
Such unsuccessful initiatives are lowering the con
sideration of that statesman who makes them. Such
failures show a want of diplomatic and statesman
like perspicacity.
The nation is assured by Mr. Lincoln and by Mr.
Seward that a perfect harmony prevails in the Cabi
net.. Beautiful if true.
General Banks attacked by Jackson and defeated ;
but, although surrounded, makes a masterly retreat,
without even being considerably worsted. Bravo,
Banks ! Such retreats do as much honor to a gen
eral as a won battle.
This bold raid of Jackson — a genuine general
— wholly disorganized that army which, if united
weeks ago, could have taken Richmond, and ren
dered Jackson's brilliant dash impossible. The mil
itary aulic council of the President is frightened out
of its senses, and asks the people for 100,000 de
fenders. General Wadsworth advised not to thus,
witho it any necessity, frighten the country.
On this occasion Governor Andrew, of Massachu
setts, wrote a scorching letter to the administration
on account of General Hunter's proclamation. Gov
ernor Andrew always acts, speaks, and writes to the
point.
This alarming appeal, so promptly responded to,
214 DIARY. [MAY, 1862,
has its good, as it will show to Europe the un tired
determination of the free States.
The President took it into his head to direct him
self, by telegraph, the military operations from Fred-
ericksburg to Shenandoah. The country sees with
what results. The military advisers of the Presi
dent seem no better than are his civil advisers —
Seward, Blair, etc. If the President earnestly wishes
to use his right as Commander-in-Chief, then he had
better take in person the command of the army of
the Potomac.
There McClellan's diggings and strategy neutral
ize the gallantry of the generals and of the troops.
There action, not digging, is needed. I wrote to
the President; suggesting to make Sigel his chief of
the staff (Sigel has been educated for it), and then
to let our generals. fight under his, the President's,
eyes.
Great injustice was and is done to Mr. Seward by
the lying and very extensively spread rumor that he
is often intoxicated. I am sure that it is not so, and
I contradict it with all my might. At last I discov
ered the reason of the rumor. It is Mr. Seward's
unhappy passion for generalizations. He goes off
like a rocket. Most people hearing him become
confused, understand nothing, are unable to follow
him in his soarings, and believe him to be intoxi
cated. His devotees alone get in ecstacies when
these rockets fly.
Every time after any success of our troops, that
perfidious sheet, the London Times, puts on inno-
MAT, 1862.] DIARY. 215
cent airs, and asks, " Why are the Americans so
bitter against England ? " Why ? At every disas
ter the Times pours upon the North the most mali
cious, poisonous, and lacerating derisions ; derisions
to pierce the skin of a rhinoceros. When in that
strain no feeling is respected by this lying paper.
Derision of the North was the Times's order of
the day even before the civil war really began.
People, who probably have it from the fountain it
self, assert that in one of his hours of whiskey ex
pansion the great Russell let the cat out, and con
fessed that the Times's firm purpose was, and is, to
definitely break the Union.
Until this hour that reptile's efforts have been un
successful ; it could not even bring the Cabinet
over to its heinous purposes. A counterpoise and a
counter poison exist in England's higher spheres,
and I credit it to that noblest woman the queen, to
Earl Russell, and to some few others.
The would-be English noblesse, the Tories, and all
the like genuine nobodies, or ivould-be somebodies,
affect to side with the South. They are welcome
to such an alliance, and even parentage. Similis
simili gaudet. Nobody with his senses considers the
like gentlemen as representing the progressive, hu
mane, and enlightened part of the English nation ;
the American people may look down upon their
snobbish hostility. J. S. Mill — not to speak of his
followers — has declared for the cause of the North.
His intellectual support more than gorgeously com
pensates the cause of right and of freedom, even
216 DIARY. [MAT, 1862.
for the loss or for the sneers of the whole aristoc
racy, and of snobdom, of somebodies and of would-
be gentlemen of the whole Britannia Empire, in
cluding the Canadian beggarly manikins.
By their arrogance the Englishmen are offensive
to all the nations of the world ; but they are still
more so by their ingrained snobbyism. (See about
it Hugo Grotius.) Further : During the last thirty
years the London Times and the Lord Fussmaker
Palmer ston have done more to make us hate Eng
land than even did the certain inborn and not over-
amiable traits in the English character.
A part of the young foreign diplomacy here have
a very strong secesh bend ; they consider the slave
holders to be aristocrats, and thus like to acquire
an aristocratic perfume. But, aristocratically speak
ing, most of this promiscuous young Europa are
parvenus, and the few titled among them have
heraldically no noble blood in their veins. No won
der that here they mistake monstrosities for real
noblesse. Enthusiastic is young Germany — that
is, young Bremen.
Young European Spain here is remarkably dis
creet, as in the times of a Philip II., of an Alba.
Corinth evacuated under the nose of Halleck, as
Manassas and Yorktown have been evacuated under
the nose of McClellan. Nay, Halleck, equally strong
as was the enemy, the first day of the evacuation
ignores what became of Beauregard with between
sixty and eighty thousand men. Oh generalship!
Gen. Halbck is a gift from Gen. Scott. If Halleck
MAT, 18G2.] DIARY. 217
makes not something better, it will turn out to be a
very poor gift. Timco Danaos, etc., concerning the
North and the gifts from " the highest military au
thority in the land"
McDowell is grimly persecuted by badjuck. Since
March, twice he organized an excellent and strong
corps, with which he could have marched on Rich
mond, and both times his corps was wholly disor
ganized — first by McClcllan's wails for more, the
second time by the President and his aulic council.
And now all the ignorance and stupidity, together
with all the McClellanites, accuse McDowell. Pity
that he was so near Washington ; otherwise his mis
fortune could not have so thoroughly occurred.
JUNE, 1862.
Diplomatic circulars seasoned by stories — Battle before Richmond —
Casey's division disgraced — McClellan afterwards confesses he
was misinformed — Fair Oaks — " Nobody is hurt, only the bleeding
people " — Fremont disobeys orders — N. Y. Times, World, and Her
ald, opinion-poisoning sheets — Napoleon never visible before nine
o'clock in the morning — Hooker and the other fighters soldered
to the mud — Senator Stimner shows the practical side of his intel
lect— " Slavery a big job! " — McClellan sends for mortars — Defend
ers of slavery in Congress worse than the rebels — Wooden guns
and cotton sentries at Corinth — The navy is glorious — Brave old
Gideon Welles ! — July 4th to be celebrated in Richmond ! — Coloni
zation again — Justice to France — New regiments— The people sub
lime ! — Congress — Lincoln visits Scott — McDowell — Pope — Dis
loyalty in the departments.
MB. SEWARD takes off from Mr. Adams the gag on
the question of slavery. Perhaps even Mr. Adams
might have been a little fretting. A long specula
tive dispatch, wherein, among some good things, one
finds some generalizations and misstatements con
cerning the distress in Ireland, generated by want
of potatoes (vide Parl. Be.), and not from want of
cotton, as says Mr. Seward — • a confession that the
government " covers the weakness of the insur
gents " and " takes care of the welfare of the insur
gents." What a tenderness, and what an ingrati
tude of the rebels to acknowledge it by blows I
213
JUXE, 1862.] DIARY. 219
Another confession, more precious, that the poor
slaves are the best and the only bravely devoted
Union men in the South, although occasionally shot
for their devotion by our generals, expelled from
the lines (vide Halleck's order No. 8), and deliv
ered to the tender mercies of their masters. Finally,
immediate emancipation is held before the eyes
of the English statesmen rather as a Medusa head ;
then a kind of story — perhaps to please Mr. Lin
coln — or quotation from some writer, etc. So far
as I recollect, it is for the first time that diplomatic
circulars arc seasoned by stories. But, dit moi qui
tu hante je te dirai qui til es.
Mr. So ward repeatedly asserts, in writing and in
words, that he has no eventual views towards the
White House. "Well, it may be so or not. But if
his friends may succeed in carrying his nomination,
then, of course, reluctantly, Hie will bend his head
to the people's will, and — accept. When in past
centuries abbots and bishops were elected, they
reluctantly accepted fat abbeys and bishoprics ; the
investiture was given in the sacramental words,
accipe onus pro peccatis.
A battle by Richmond. McClellan telegraphs a
victory, and it comes out that we lost men, positions,
camps, and artillery. The President patiently bears
such humbugging, and the country — submits.
McClellan disgraces a part of the brave General
Casey's division. Whatever might have been the
conduct of the soldiers in detail, one .thing is cer-
Aain, that the division was composed of rough levies ;
220 D I A B Y. [JUNE, 1862.
that they fought three hours, being almost sur
rounded by overwhelming forces; that they kept
ground until reinforcements came ; that the break
ing of the division cannot be true, or was only par
tial, and that McClellan was not at all on the
ground.
This battle of Fair Oaks is another evidence of
the transcendent incapacity of the chief of the staff
of the army of the Potomac, and of Gen. McClel
lan' s veracity. In a subsequent bulletin the general
confesses that he was misinformed concerning the
conduct of Gen. Casey's division.
In any other army in the world, a chief of the
staff who would assign to a division a post so ad
vanced, so isolated, so cut off from the rest of the
army, as was Gen. Casey's position, — such a chief
of the staff would be at once dismissed. Here, oh
here, nobody is hurt, nobody is to be hurt — only
the bleeding people.
As to the conduct of the soldiers, they fought
well ; thorough veterans scarcely could have behaved
better. McCleUan turns out worse even than I ex
pected. 9
The President's campaign against Jackson — very
unsuccessful. Fremont came not up to the mark ;
disobeyed orders. No excuse whatever for such dis
obedience.
One is at a loss which is to be more admired, the
ignorance or the impudence of such opinion-confus
ing and opinion-poisoning sheets as the New York
Times, the World, the Herald, etc. They sing ho-
Jtmz, 1862.] DIARY. 22f
sanna for McClellan's victories. In advance they
praise the to-be-fought battles on selected fields of
battle, and after the plans have been matured for
weeks, nay for months. •
A plan of a whole campaign, a general survey
of it, may be prepared and matured long before the
campaign begins. But to mature for weeks a plan
of a battle ! All the genuine great captains seldom
had the selection of a field of battle, as they rapidly
moved in search of or to meet their enemies, and
fought them where they found them. For the same
reason, they scarcely had more than forty-eight
hours to mature their plans. Such is the history
and the character of nine-tenths of the great battles
fought in the world.
When Napoleon overthrew Prussia and Austria,
he beforehand prepared those campaigns ; but
neither Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Austerlitz or
Wagrani were the fields of battle of his special
choice. But Napoleon moved his armies as did all
the great captains before him, and as must do all
great captains after him. Only American great cap
tains sit down in the mud and dig.
At times in the West, Pope, Mitchell, Nelson,
Grant moved their forces, and beat the enemy. I
am sure that these brave generals and the braves
of the army of the Potomac most certainly are
early risers. A certain Napoleon never is visible
before nine o'clock in the morning. So I hear from
a French officer who is not in the service, but fol
lows the movements of the Potomac army.
*222 DIARY. [JUNE, 1862.
In McClellan's army Heintzelman, Hooker, Kear
ney, Sumner, and many others, would move quick,
would fight and beat ; but a leaden weight presses,
and solders them to the mud. I must write an arti
cle to the press concerning the rapidity of move
ments, — this golden rule for any conduct of a war.
Since he was in the field, McNapoleon neither
planned nor assisted in person in any encounter.
When are his great plans to burst out ?
In one of his recently published dispatches, Mr.
Seward makes an awful mistake in trying to estab
lish the difference between a revolution and a
civil war, as to their respective relations to foreign
interference and support. A little knowledge of
history, and a less presumption, would have spared
to him such an exposure. A revolution in a nation
can be effected, and generally is effected, without a
foreign intervention, and without even an appeal
to it. Most of the civil wars look to foreign help.
So teaches history, whatever may be Mr. Seward's
contrary generalizations.
Mr. Seward is unrelenting in his efforts to build
up the Union-saving slavery party, and is sure, as
he says, to be able to manage the Republicans, in
and out of Congress. We shall see.
Senator Sumner very well discusses the tax-bill,
and again shows the practical side of his intellect.
Sumner proves that a laborious intellect can grasp
and master the most complicated matters. If Sum
ner could only have more experience of men and
things, he would not be so Germanly — naive.
JUNE, 1862.] DIARY. 223
Mr. Seward triumphantly publishes the Turkish
hatti, by which pirates are excluded from the Otto
man ports. Oh, Jemine ! to be patronized by the
Turks ! Misfortune brings one with strange bed
fellows.
On the occasion of the organization of slaves at
Beaufort, Mr. Lincoln exclaimed, " Slavery is a big
job, and will smother us ! " It will, if dealt with in
your way, Mr. President.
McClellan sends for mortars and hundred-pound
ers ; these monsters are to fight, but not he. Well,
even so, if possible.
The Southern leaders send to Europe officers of
artillery to buy arms and ammunition, and are well
served. Our good administration sends speculators,
railroad engineers, agents of sewing machines, and
the arms bought by them kill our own soldiers, and
not the enemies.
English papers taunt the Americans that in one
hundred years the country must become a mon
archy. The Americans have now a foretaste of
some among the features of monarchy, among oth
ers of favoritism. The Pompadours and the Du-
barrys could not have sustained a McClellan at the
cost of so many lives and so many millions. Then
the dabbling in war, and other etc.'s, performed in
the most approved Louis XIV.'s or Nicolean style.
Worse than the rebels, and by far more abject
and degraded, arc the defenders of slavery, of trea
son, and of rebellion in the Congress, in the press,
224 DIARY. f JUICE, 1862.
and in the public opinion. No gallows high enough
for them.
McClellan crowds the marshes with heavy artil
lery, and may easily lose them at the smallest disas
ter. His army is overburdened with artillery in a
country where the moving of guns must be exceed
ingly difficult, nay, often impossible. And then the
difficulty of having such a large number of men
drilled for the service of guns. Scarcely any army
in Europe possesses artillerists in such numbers as
are now required here. Few guns well served make
more execution than large numbers of them fired
at random.
Instead of concentrating his army and attacking
at once the rebels in Richmond, McClellan extends
his army over nearly sixty miles ! To keep such an
extensive line more than 300,000 would be required.
Oh, heavens ! this man is more ignorant of warfare
than his worst enemies have suspected him.
It is reported that at Corinth the rebels had not
only wooden guns, but cotton manikins as sentries.
God grant it may not be true, as it would make the
slow, pedantic Halleck even below McClellan.
The future historian will be amazed, bewildered,
nay, he may lose his senses, discovering the heaps
of confusion and of ignorance which caused tho
disasters of Banks, the escape of Jackson, etc., etc.
It is impossible to resist the admiration inspired
by the skill, tho daring, the fertility of intellectual
resources displayed by the rebels ; all this is so thor-
JUNE, 1862.] DIARY. 225
oughly contrasted by what is done by our legal
chiefs.
Pity that such manhood is shown in the defence
of the most infamous cause ever known in the his
tory of the world. To conquer an independence
with the sole object to procreate, to breed, to traffic
in, and to whip slaves !
The navy is glorious everywhere, and not fussy.
The people can never sufficiently remunerate the
navy, if patriotic services are to be remunerated.
The same would be with the army but for the Napo-
Icons !
The published correspondence between the rebels
Rust and Hunter fully justifies my confidence in
Louis Napoleon's sound judgment. That publica
tion clearly establishes how the press here is wholly
unable to conceive or to comprehend the policy of
the great European nations. The press heaps out
rages and nurses suspicions against Napoleon. The
Santlfords and others knowingly stir up suspi
cions to make believe that their smartness averts
the evil. Poor chaps ! When great interests are
at stake, neither their fuss, nor any dispatch, how
ever elaborate, can exercise a shadow of influence.
It seems that a Babylonian confusion prevails in
the movements, in the distribution, and in the com
bination of the various parts of the army under
McClellan. I should wonder if it were otherwise,
with such a general and supported by such a chief
of the staff.
Brave old Gideon Welles (Neptune) instructing
15
226 DIARY. [JUNE, 1862.
his sailors to fight, and not to calculate, and " not to
deliver anybody against his personal wish."
These imbecile reporters and letter-writers for
the press, and other sensationists, make me enraged
with their sneers at the poverty of the rebels. If so,
the more heroism. They forget the " beggars " of
the Dutch insurrection against Philip II.
The cat is out, and I am sorry for it. The world
is informed that the revolution is finished, and now
the civil war begins. Oh generalizer! oh philoso
pher of history ! oh prophet as to the speedy end of
the civil war ! Oh stop, oh stop ! Not by digging
will your pet McClellan bring the war to a speedy
close.
I am often enraged against myself not to be able
to admire Mr. Seward, and to be obliged to judge his
whole policy in such, perhaps too severe, a manner.
What can I do, what can I do ? No one, not even
Gen. Scott and Mr. Lincoln, since January, 1861, has
exercised an influence equal to Mr. Seward's on
the affairs of the country, and amicus Plato, etc.,
sei magis arnica veritas.
Mr. Seward believes that July 4th will be cele
brated by us in Richmond. He and McClellan
spread this hope ; Doolfttle believes it. We could
be in Richmond any day under any other general,
not a Napoleon ; we may never be there if led on by
McClellan, inspired by Mr. Seward's policy.
The French amateur in McClellan's army is dis
gusted with McNapoleon, and speaks with contempt
of the reckless waste of men, of material, etc. He
Juins, 1862.] DIARY. 227
calls it cruel, brainless, and uses a great many other
exclamations.
The healthful activity of Stanton, his broad and
clear perception of almost all exigencies of these
critical times, are continually baffled and neutral
ized by the allied McClellan, Blair, Seward, New
York Times and New York Herald. Such an alli
ance can easily confuse even the strongest brains.
The colonization again on the tapis, and all the
wonted display of ignorance, stupidity, ill-will, and
pharisceism towards genuine liberty.
Seward gave up his Yucatan scheme. Chiriqui
has the lead. And finally, some foreign diplomats
try to make conspicuous their little royalties. So
Denmark tries to cultivate the barren rocks of St.
Thomas with the poor captives. It will be a new
kind of apprenticeship under cruel masters. I hear
that Mr. Lincoln is caught in the trap, and that a
convention ad hoc is soon to be concluded. This
time, at least, Mr. Seward's name will remain
outside.
I am uneasy, fearing we may commit some spread-
eagleism towards France during this present Mexi
can imbroglio. I will do my utmost to explain to
influential senators the truth concerning Louis Na
poleon's political conduct towards the North, the
absurdity of any hostile demonstration against
France, and the dirt constituting the sub-stratum of
the new Mexican treaty.
" French policy may change towards us," say the
228 DIARY. [Jtms, 1862.
anti-Napoleons ; " Louis Napoleon will unmask his
diplomatic batteries," etc., etc.
Well, Louis Napoleon may change when he finds
that we are incorrigible imbeciles, and that the
great interests, which to defend is his duty, are
jeopardized ; but not before. As for masked batte
ries, I considered worse than fools all those who
believed in masked batteries at Manassas; and in
the same light I consider -all the believers in diplo
matic masked batteries. I was not afraid of the one,
and am not of the other.
Not one single French vessel has run, or attempt
ed to run, the blockade ; not one has left the ports
of Franco, or of the French \Vest Indies, loaded with
arms or ammunition for the insurgents. As for the
barking of French papers, or of some second or
third rate saloons, barkings thus magnified by Amer
ican letter-writers, I know too much of Paris and of
society to take notice of it. I am sure that the
whole rebel tross in Paris, male and female, have
not yet been admitted into any single saloon of the
real good or high society in Paris, and never will be.
A thus called highly accomplished and fashionable
lady from New Orleans, or from Washington,
may easily be taken for a country dress-maker, or
for a chamber-maid, not fit for first families of the
genuine good and high society in Paris, and all
over Europe.
Stanton, the true patriot, frets in despair at Mc-
Clellan's keeping the army in the unhealthiest place
of Virginia. Stanton's opponents,, the rats, find all
, 1*62.1 DIARY. 229
right, even the deaths by disease. In the end Me-
Clellan is to be all the better for it. Is there no
penitentiary for all this mob ?
New regiments pour in, the people are sublime
in their devotion ; only may these regiments not
become sacrificed to the Jaggernaut of imbecility.
Whatever may say its rcvilcrs, this Congress will
have a noble and pure page in American history.
I speak of the majority.
The Congress showed energy, clear and broad
comprehension and appreciation of the events and
of men. The Congress was ready for every sacri
fice, and would have accelerated the crushing of the
rebellion but for the formulas, and for the inade
quacy of the majority in the administration. If the
Congress had no great leaders, the better for it ; it
had honest and energetic men, and their leader was
their purpose, their pure belief in the justice of
their cause and in the people. Such leaders elevate
higher any political body than could ever a Clay,
a Webster, etc., etc.
The Congress is palsied by the inefficiency of the
administration, and but for this, the Congress
would have done far more for the salvation of the
country. All the best men in Congress support
Stanton, and this alone speaks volumes. It is a
curse that the administration is so independent of
the Congress. Oh, why this Congress possesses not
the omnipotence of an English Parliament ? Then
the Congress would have prevented all the evils
hitherto brought upon the country by the vacillating
230 DIARY. [Jtrms, 1883.
military and geueral policy. Step by step this poli
cy brings the country to the verge of an abyss, and
it will tax all the energy of the people not to be
precipitated in it.
Mr. Lincoln has gone to get inspiration and infor
mation from Gen. Scott. Good God ! Can this
man never go out from this rotten tread-mill ? One
more advice from the " great ruin," and the coun
try will also be a ruin.
Flatterers, sensation writers, and all this magnet,
clientum caterva extol to the skies Mr. Lincoln's
firmness and straight-forwardness. The firmness is
located, and is to be discovered in various places —
in the lips, in the chin, in the jaw, and God knows
where else. I cannot detect any firmness in his ac
tions beyond that of sticking to McClellan, — of
whom he has the worst opinion, — and of resisting
the emancipation and the arming of Africo-Ameri-
cans. He has firmness in letting the country be
ruined.
McClellan' s bulletins constitute the most original
and strange collection of style in general, and of
military style in particular. Capt. Morin says that
the first thing is to teach McClellan how to write
military bulletins.
Mr. Seward's crew of politicians is busily at
work among congressmen, etc., to prepare a strong
party in support of the administration's eventual
concessions to slavery, in case Richmond' is taken.
Ultra Democratic, half secession Senators are
sounded.
Jtmz,1862.] DIARY. 231
The more the events complicate, the more they
require a powerful, all-embracing mind, but in the
same proportion subside Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward,
Mr. Weed, and all the rest of the great men. Alone
the people and their true men subside not.
Poor McDowell suffers for the sins of others —
above all, for those of Mr. Lincoln and of his aulic
council. He is internally broken down, but behaves
nobly ; not as does this poor Fremont, whose disap
pearance from the military scene cannot and must
not be regretted. He is not a military capacity ; he
was again badly surrounded, and his last battle was
fought at random, without any unity. I spoke
about it with various foreign officers serving under
him, and all agree in the incapacity of Fremont and
of his staff.
Gen. Pope, a man for the circumstances, acted
well in the West ; at last a new man.
McClcllan inaugurated new tactics. It is to ap
proach the enemy's army by parallels and by
trenches. He will not take or scare the enemy, but
he will immortalize his name far above the immor
tality of all not great generals.
Night and day ambulances are conveying the sick
and wounded here, and large numbers, thousands
upon thousands, going north. One must cry tears
of blood to witness such destruction, such a sacrifice
of the noblest people on the shrine of utter military
incapacity. And the traitors, the imbeciles, and the
intriguers sing hallelujah to McClellan, and daily
throw their slime at Stauton.
232 DIARY. UtrNE.1862.
From time to time rumors and complaints are
made concerning the ill-will or disloyalty of some
of the employes in the Departments. The explana
tion thereof may be that some of the thus called
old fogies, above all in the War Department, may
be unfriendly to the war without being disloyal.
Such venerables took root in comfortable situations ;
they slowly trod in the easy path of rusty and musty
routine, and at once the war shook them to the
bone, exposing the incapacity and the inefficiency
of many ; it forced upon them the horror of cogi-
tandi about new matters, and an amount of daily
duties to be performed in offices which formerly
equalled sinecures. Further, these relics dread to
be superseded by more active and intelligent men ;
and inde irce.
JULY, 1862.
Intervention — The cursed fields of the Chickahominy — Titanic fight
ings, but no generalship — McClcllan the first to reach James river
— The Orleans leave — July 4th, the gloomiest since the birth of tho
republic — Not reinforcements, but brains, wanted; and brains not
transferable ! — The people run to the rescue — Kebcl tactics — Lincoln
docs not sacrifice Stanton— McClcllan not the greatest culprit —
Stanton a true statesman— The President goes to James river— The
Union as it was, a throttling nightmare! — A man needed! — Con
fiscation bill signed — Congress adjourned — Mr. Dicey — Halleck, the
American Carnot — Lincoln tries to neutralize the confiscation bill —
Guerillas spread like locusts.
WHEN at epochs of great social convulsions events
and circumstances put certain individuals into an
eminent or elevated position, their names become in
tertwined with the great epoch. In the eyes of the
masses and of the vulgar observers, such names ac
quire a high importance on account of the com
monly made confusion between circumstances and
personal merit, and, moonlight-like, such names
reverberate not their own, but a borrowed splendor.
Thus much for the official pilots of this great people.
The usual paroxysm of the foreign intervention
fever. It ought to be so easy to understand, that
out of self-respect foreign powers will not risk any
intervention on paper ; and to make an effective in
tervention a hundred thousand men will be neces
sary, as the first course. Fgr such a service no
233
234 DIARY. [JULY, 1862.
foreign power is prepared. Intervention is silly
talk. McClellan and all kinds of his supporters do
more for the South than could England and France
united.
It was a poor trick to gather by telegraph the sig
natures of the governors for an offer of troops to the
President. It was done for effect in Europe ; but
events seem to have a grudge against Mr. Seward ;
the same steamer carried over the Atlantic the news
of our defeats in the Chickahominy swamps.
To attempt a change of such an extensive basis as
was occupied by our army under the eyes of a dar
ing, able, skilful enemy, in a country wooded and
marshy, and without roads! This movement was
perhaps necessary, and could not be avoided ; but
why at the start had such a basis been selected?
Such a selection made disasters inevitable, and they
followed.
All kinds of accounts pour in from these cursed
fields of the Chickahominy. Foreign officers —
whose veracity I can believe — speak enthusiastical
ly of the undaunted bravery of the volunteers and
of their generals ; but a general generalship was not
to be found during those titanic fightings. "What I
gathered from the suite of the Orleans is, that Gen.
McClellan was totally confused, was totally ignorant
of the condition of the corps, was never within dis
tance to give or to be asked for orders, and was the
first to reach the banks of the James and to sleep on
board the gunboat Galena. At Winchester, Banks
in person covered the retreat, -«•-
JULY, 1862.] DIARY* 235
The Orleans left. I pity them ; they will be hooted
in Europe. They shared some of McClcr;in's falla
cious and petty notions, and very likely they have
been gulled by the McClellan-Scward expectations of
taking Richmond before July 4th.
Gen. Hunter's letter about fugitive slaves, and
rebels fugitive from the flag of the Union, is the
noblest contra distinction. No rhetor could have
invented it. Hang yourselves, oh rhetors !
July 4/A. — The gloomiest since the birth of this
republic. Never was the country so low, and after
such sacrifices of blood, of time, and of money ; and
all this slaughtered to that Juggernaut of strategy,
and to the ignoble motley of his supporters.
Oh you widows, bereaved mothers, sisters, and
sweethearts, cry for vengeance ! Cry for vengeance,
you shadows of the dead of the malaria, or fallen in
the defence of your country's honor. Stupidity has
stabbed in the back more deadly wounds than did
the enemy in front. This is the 4th of July. Oh !
my old heart and my, not weak, mind are bursting
with grief.
The people, the masses, sacrifice their blood, their
time, their fortune. What sacrifice the official lead
ers and pilots ? All is net gain for them. Thou
sands and thousands of families will be impoverished
for life, nay, for generations. It is those nameless
licroos on the fields of battle who alone uphold the
honor of the American name, as it is the poopla at
large who have the true statesmanship, and not the
appointed guardsmen.
236 DIARY. [JULY, 1862.
Rats, hounds, all the vermin, all the impure
beasts, are after Stanton, for his not having sent re
inforcements to McClellan; but none existed, and
McClellan has exhausted and devoured all the re
serves. Not reinforcements, but brains, were want
ed, and brains are not transferable.
The people, sublime, runs again to the rescue,
and Mr. Seward is so sacrilegious, so impious, as to
say that the people is generally slow. He is fast on
the road of confusion.
I am sure that the whole movement and attack of
the rebels was made, as it could be made, at the
utmost with 60,000 to 70,000 men, if even with such
a number. The rebels never attacked our whole
line, but always threw superior forces on some weak
and isolated point. This the rebels did during the
last battles. The rebels showed great generalship.
Jackson is already the legendary hero, and deserves
to be.
McClellan never attacked, but always was sur
prised and forced to fight, so the rebels were sure
that he would not dare anything to counteract and
counter-manoeuvre their daring ; so the rebel gen
erals had perfect ease for the execution of their
bold but skilful plans.
Lincoln sacrifices not Stanton, not even to Seward,
to Blair, and to the slaveocrats in Congress. That is
something.
McClellan publishes a pompous order of the day
for the 4th of July, and apes the phraseology of
JXTLT, 1862.] DIARY. 287
Napoleon's bulletins from times when by a blow
Napoleon overthrew empires.
What I can gather from the accounts of the seven
days' fighting is, that during the battle at Games'
Mills (to speak technically), positively the whole
army was without any basis. But traitors, imbe
ciles and intriguers rend the air and the skies with
their praises of the great strategy and of the brilliant
generalship.
I am aware how difficult it will be to convince the
heroic army — that is, its rank and file — that their
disasters result from want of generalship, and not
from any inferiority in numbers. All over the world
incapable commanders raise the outcry of deficiency
in numbers to cover therewith their personal defi
ciency of brains. Similar events to McClcllan's
wails, and the confusion they create in the armies
and in the people, are nothing new in the history of
wars.
A fleet of gunboats covers the army on the James
river. Once McClcllan condescendingly boasted
that he would take care of the gunboats. The
worst is, that these gunboats could have done ser
vice against Charleston, Mobile, Savannah, etc.
After all, McClellan is not the greatest culprit. It
is not his fault that he is without military brains
and without military capacity. He tried to do the
best, according to his poor intellect. The great,
eternally-to-bc-damncd malefactors are those who
kept him in command after having had repeated proofs
of his incapacity ; and still greater are those con-
238 DIARY. [JtrLY, 1862.
stitutional advisers who supported McClellan against
tho outcry of the best in the Cabinet and in the
nation. A time may come when the children of
those malefactors will be ashamed of their fathers'
names, and — curse them.
I have not scorn enough against the revilers and
accusers of Stanton. If Stanton could have had
his free will, far different would be the condition of
affairs. Stan ton's first appeararce put an end to
tho prevailing lethargy, and marked a new and
glorious era. But, ah ! how short ! The rats and
the vermin were afraid of him, and took shelter be
hind the incarnated strategy. Stanton embraced
and embraces the ensemble of the task and of the
field before him. And this politician, Blair, to be
his critic ! If Stanton had been left undisturbed in
the execution of his duties as the Secretary of War,
McClellan would have been obliged to march direct
ly to Richmond, and the brainless strategy in the
Peninsula would have been crushed in the bud. If
Stanton had not been undermined, not only the peo
ple would have been saved from terrible disasters,
but McClellan, Lincoln, Seward, and Blair would
have been saved from reproaches and from maledic
tion.
Stanton likewise shows himself to be a true states
man. A Democrat in politics, he very likely never
was such a violent and decided opponent of slavery
as the Sewards and Blairs professed to be through
out their whole lives. But now Stanton pierces the
fog, perceives the unavoidable exigencies, and is an
JULY, 1862.J DIARY. 239
emancipationist, when the Sewards and the Blairs
try to compromise, nay, virtually to preserve slavery .
July 10th. — The rebels won time to increase and
gather their forces from the south. McClellan's
army may not prevent their turning against Pope,
who has too small a body to resist or to cover the
whole line from Fredericksburg to the Shcnandoah.
If the rebels attack Pope he must retreat and con
centrate before Washington ; and then again begins
the uphill work. The people generally pour in
blood, time and money ; but brains, brains are need
ed, and, without violating the formulas, the people
cannot inaugurate brains. Whatever the people
may do, the same quacks and bunglers will over
again commit the same blunders. Nothing can teach
a little foresight to the helmsman and to some of
his seconds. Rocked by his imagination, Mr. Sew-
ard never sees clearly the events before him and
what they generate.
The call for three hundred thousand men will be
responded to. The men will come ; but will states
manship and generalship come with them ? I am
afraid that the rebels, operating, with promptness
and energy, may give no time to the levies to be
fully organized ; the rebels will press on Washington.
McClellan reports to the President that he has
only 50,000 men left. The President goes to James
river, and finds 83,000 ready for action. Was it
ignorance in McClellan, or his inborn disrespect of
truth, or disrespect of the country, or something
worse, that made him make such a report ? And
240 DIARY. [JULY, 1862.
all this passes, and Mr. Lincoln cannot huit Me.
Clellan, although a gory shroud extends over the
whole country.
A secretary of the French consul is here, and
confirms my speculations concerning the numbers of
the rebels in the last battles on the Chickahominy.
The current and authoritative opinion in Richmond
is, that from the Potomac to the Rio Grande the
rebel force never exceeded 800,000 men. If so, the
more glory; and it must be so, according to the
rational analysis of statistics.
Mr. Scward writes a skilful dispatch to explain
the battles on the Chickahominy. But no skill can
succeed to bamboozle the cold, clear-sighted Euro
pean statesmen.
No doubt Mr. Seward sincerely wished to save
the Union in his own way and according to his pe
culiar conception, and, after having accomplished
it, disappear from the political arena, surrounded
by the halo of national gratitude.
But even for this aim of reconstruction of the
Union as it was, Mr. Seward, at the start, took the
wrong track, and took it because he is ignorant of
history and of the logic in human affairs. To save
the Union as it was, it was imperatively necessary
to strike quick and crushing blows, and to do this in
May, June, etc., 1861. Mr. Seward could have re
alized then what now is only a throttling nightmare
— the Union as it was. But Mr. Seward sustained
a policy of delays and not of blows ; the struggle
protracts, and, for reasons repeatedly mentioned, the
JULY, 1862.] DIARY. 241
suppression of rebellion becomes more and more
difficult, and the reconstruction of the old Union as
it was a mirage of his imagination.
But it is not Thurlow Weed, and others of
that stamp, who could enlighten Mr. Seward on
such subjects — far, far above their vulgar and mean
politicianism. It is now useless to accuse and con
demn Congress for its so-called violence, as docs Mr.
Seward, and to assert that but for Congress he, Mr.
Seward, would have long ago patched up the quar
rel. The Congress may be as tame as a lamb, and
as subject as a foot-sole. Mr. Seward may on his
knees proffer to the rebels a compromise and the
most stringent safeguards for slavery ; to-day the
rebels will spurn all as they would have spurned it
during the whole year. The rebels will act as Ma
son did when in the Senate hall Mr. Seward asked
the traitor to be introduced to Mr. Lincoln.
The country is in more need of a man than of the
many hundreds of thousands of new levies. «
Some time ago Mr. Seward gathered around him
his devotees in Congress (few in number), and un
veiled to them that nobody can imagine what super
human efforts it cost him to avert foreign interven
tion. Very unnecessary demonstration, as he knows
it well himself, and, if it gets into the papers, may
turn out to be offensive to the two cabinets, as they
give to Mr. Seward no reason for making such state
ments. Should England and France ever decide
upon any such step, then Mr. Seward may write as
16
242 DIARY. Mm,Y, 18G2.
a Cicero, have all the learning of a Hugo Grotius,
of a Vattel, and of all other publicists combined;
he may send legions of Weods and Sandfords to
Europe, and all this will not weigh a feather with
the cabinets of London and of Paris.
Further, no foreign powers occasioned our defeats
in the Chickaliominy ', but those who were enraptured
with the Peninsula strategy.
Mr. Seward's letter to the great meeting in New
York shows that not his patriotism, but his confi
dence in success, is slightly notched.
Nobody doubts his patriotism ; but Mr. Seward
tried to shape mighty events into a mould after his
not-over-gigantic mind, and now he frets because
these events tear his sacrilegious hand.
After much opposition, vacillation, hesitation,
and aversion, the President signed the confiscation
and emancipation bill. A new evidence of how de
votedly he wishes to avert any deadly blows from
slavery, — this national shame.
The Congress adjourned after having done every
thing good, and what was in its power. It separa
ted, leaving the country's cause in a worse condition
than it was a year ago, after the Bull Run day.
Many, nay, almost all the best members of both
houses are fully aware in what hands they left the
destinies of the nation. Many went away with de
spair in their hearts ; but the constitutional formula
makes it impossible for them to act, and to save
what so badly needs a savior.
JULY, 1862.] DIARY. 243
Intervention fever again. The worst intervention
is perpetrated at home by imbeciles, by intriguers,
by traitors, and by the — spades.
Mr. Dicey, an Englishman who travelled or trav
els in this country, — Mr. D. is the first among his
countrymen who understands the events here, and
who is just toward the true American people ; —
Mr. D. truly says that the people fight without a
general, and without a statesman, and are the more
to be admired for it.
Mr. Seward tries to appear grand before the for
eign diplomats, and talks about Cromwell, Louis
Napoleon, coup cV Etats against the Congress, and
about his regrets to be in the impossibility to imitate
them. Only think, Cromwell, Napoleon I., Napo
leon III., Seward ! Such dictatorial dreams may
explain Mr. Scward's partiality for General McClel-
lan, whom Seward may perhaps wish to use as Louis
Napoleon used Gen. St. Arnoud.
Ilallcck is to be the American Carnot. But any
change is an improvement. If Ilallcck extricates
the army on the James river, and saves it from
malaria, — this enemy more deadly than Jackson
and McClcllan combined, — then for this single ac
tion Ilallcck deserves well of the country, and his
Corinth affair will, at least in part, be atoned for.
Mr. Lincoln makes a new effort to save his mam
my, and tries to neutralize the confiscation bill.
Mr. Lincoln will not make a stop beyond what is
called the Cordar-States' policy ; and it may prove
too late when he will decide to honestly execute tho
244 B I A R Y. [JULY, 1862.
law of Congress. Mr. Seward gets into hysterics
at the hateful name of Congress. Similar spite he
showed to a delegation from the city of New York,
upbraiding some of its members, and assuring them
that delegations are not needed, — that the adminis
tration is fully up to the task. Yes, Stanton is, but
how about some others ?
Poor Mr. Lincoln ! he must stand all the mutual
puffs of Seward and Sandford, and some more in
store for him when the Weeds and Hughes will come
and give an account of their doings in Europe.
The report of the battle against Casey, as pub
lished by the rebel General Johnston, is a master
piece of military style, and shows how skilfully the
attack was combined. The Southern leaders have
exclusively in view the triumph of their cause.
With many of our leaders, the people's cause is
made to square with their little selfishness.
Guerillas spread like locusts. Perhaps they are
the results of our Union-searching, slavery-saving
policy.
AUGUST, 1862.
Emancipation — The President's hand falls back — Weed sent for — Gen.
TTads worth— The new levies — The Africo- Americans not called for
— Let every Northern man be shot rather ! — End of the Peninsula
campaign — Fifty or sixty thousand dead — Who is responsible? —
The army saved — Lincoln and McClcllan — The President and the
Africo-Americans — An Eden in Chiriqui — Greclcy — The old lion
begins to awake — Mr. Lincoln tells stories — The rebels take the
offensive — European opinion — MeClellan's army landed — Roebuck
— Ilalleck — Butler's mistakes — Hunter recalled — Terrible fighting
at Manassas — Popffcuts his way through — Reinforcements slow
in coining— McClellan reduced in command.
Vulgatior fama cst, that Mr. Lincoln was already
raising his hand to sign a stirring proclamation 011
the question of emancipation ; that Stanton was up
holding the President's arm that it might not grow
weak in the performance of a sacred duty ; that
Chase, Bates, and Welles joined Stanton ; hut that
Messrs. Seward and Blair so firmly objected that
the President's outstretched hand slowly began to
fall back ; that to precipitate the mortification, Thur-
low Weed was telegraphed ; that Thurlow Weed pre
sented to Mr. Lincoln the Medusa-head of Irish riots
in the North against the emancipation of slaves in
the South ; that Mr. Lincoln's mind faltered (oh,
Steffens) before such a Chinese shadow, and that
thus once more slavery was saved. Relata rcfero.
245
246 DIARY. [AUGUST, 1862.
General Wadsworth is the good genius of the
poor and oppressed race. But for Wadsworth's
noble soul and heart the Lamons and many other
blood-hounds in Washington would have given
about three-fourths of the fugitives over to the whip
of the slavers.
Within the last four weeks 600,000 new levies are
called to arms. With the 600,000 men levied pre
viously, it is the heaviest draft ever made from a
population. No emperor or despot ever did it in a
similar lapse of time. The appreciation current
here is, that the twenty millions of inhabitants can
easily furnish such a quota ; but the truth is that
the draft, or the levy, or the volunteering, is made
from about three millions of men between the ages
of twenty and forty years. One million two hun
dred thousand in one year is equal to nearly 36-100,
and this from the most vital, the most generative,
and most productive part of the population.
The sama analysis and percentage applied to the
statistics of the population in the rebel States gives a
little above 800,000 men under arms; however, the
percentage of the drafts from the full-aged popula
tion in the South can be increased by some 15-100
over the percentage in the North. This increase is
almost exclusively facilitated by the substratum of
slavery, and our administration devotedly takes care
ne detrimentum capiat that peculiar institution.
The last draft could be averted from the North if
the four millions of loyal Africo-Americans were
called to arms. But Mr. Lincoln, with the Sewards,
AUGUST, 1862.] DIARY. 247
the Blairs, and others, will rather see every North
ern man shot than to touch the palladium of the
rebels.
These new enormous masses will crush the rebel
lion, provided they are not marshalled by strategy ;
but nevertheless the painful confession must be
made, that our putting in the field of three to one
rebel may confuse a future historian, and contribute
to root more firmly that stupid fallacy already assert
ed by the rebels, and by some among their European
upholders, of the superiority of the Southern over
the Northern thus called race. Such a stigma is
inflicted upon the brave and heroic North by the
strategy, and by the vacillating, slave-saving policy
of the administration.
This is the more painful for me to record, as most
of the foreign officers in our service, and who are
experienced and good judges, most positively assert
the superior fighting qualities of the Union volun
teers over the rebels. Our troops are better fed,
clad and armed, but over our army hovers the thick
mist of strategy and indecision ; the rebels are led
not by anaconda strategians, but by fighting gene
rals, desperate, and thus externally heroic ; energy
inspires their councils, their administration, and
their military leaders.
If Stanton and Hallcck succeed in extricating the
army on the James river, then they will deserve the
gratitude of the people. The malaria there must be
more destructive than would be many battles.
Events triumphantly justify Stanton's opposition
248 DIARY. [AUGUST, 1862.
to the Peninsula strategy and campaign. So ends
this horrible sacrifice ; between fifty and sixty thou
sand killed or dead by diseases. The victims of this
holocaust have fallen for their country's cause, but
the responsibility for the slaughter is to be equally
divided between McClellan, Lincoln, Seward and
Blair. Even Sylla had not on his soul so much
blood as has the above quatuor. When, after the vic
tory over the allied Samnites and others, at the
Colline gate of Rome, Sylla ordered the massacre of
more than four thousand prisoners who laid down
their arms ; when his lists of proscription filled with
blood Rome and other cities of Italy, Sylla so firmly
consolidated the supremacy of the Urbs over Italy
and over the world, that after twenty centuries of
the most manifold vicissitudes, transformations and
tempests, this supremacy cannot yet be upturned.
But the holocaust to strategy resulted in humiliating
the North and in heaping glory on the Southern
leaders.
If the newly called 600,000 men finish the rebel
lion before Congress meets, then slavery is saved.
To save slavery and to avoid emancipation was per
haps the secret aim of Mr. Lincoln, Seward, and
Blair ; who knows but that of Halleck, when
the administration called for the additional 300,000
men ?
Persons who approach Halleck say that he is a
thorough pro-slavery partisan. His order No. 3,
the opinion of some officers of his staff, and his asso
ciations, make me believe in the truth of that report.
AUGUST, 1862.] DIARY. 249
Mr. Seward says sub rosa to various persons, that
slavery is an obsolete question, and lie assures others
that emancipation is a fixed fact, and is no more to
be held back ; that he is no more a conservative.
How are we to understand this man ? If Mr. Sew
ard is sincere, then his last transformation may
prove that he has given up the idea of finding a
Union party in the South, or that he wishes to re
conquer — what he has lost — the confidence of the
party. But this return on his part may prove trop-
po tardi.
The army of the Potomac is saved ; the heroes,
martyrs, and sufferers are extricated from the grasp
of death. This epopee in the history of the civil
war will immortalize the army, but the strategian's
immortality will differ from that of the army.
England and France firm in their neutrality.
Lord John Russell's speeches in Parliament are all
that can be desired.
Will it ever be thoroughly investigated and eluci
dated why, after the evacuation of Corinth, the on
ward march of our everywhere-victorious Western
armies came at once to a stand-still ? The guerillas,
the increase of forces in Richmond, and some event
ual diasters, may be directly traced to this inconceiv
able conduct on the part of the Western command
ers or of the Commander-in-chief. Was not some
Union-searching at the bottom of that stoppage ?
When, months ago, a false rumor was spread about
the evacuation of Memphis and Corinth, Mr. Seward
was ready to start for the above-mentioned places, of
250 DIARY. [ VUGUST, 1862.
course in search of the Union feeling. Perhaps
others were drawn into this Union-searching, Union
and slavery-restoring conspiracy.
I have most positive reasons to believe that Gen.
Halleck wished to remove Gen. McClellan from the
command of the army. The President opposed to
it. Men of honor, of word, and of truth, and who
are on intimate footing with Mr. Lincoln, repeatedly
assured me that, in his conversation, the President
judges and appreciates Gen. McClellan as he is
judged and appreciated by those whom his crew call
his enemies. With all this, Mr. Lincoln, through
thin and thick, supports McClellan and maintains
him in command. Such a double-dealing in the
chief of a noble people ! Seemingly Mr. Seward
and Mr. Blair always exercise the most powerful
influence. Both wished that the army remain in
the malarias of the James river. Whatever be their
reasons, one shudders in horror at the ease with
which all those culprits look on this bloody affair.
Oh you widowed wives, mothers, and sweethearts !
oh you orphaned children ! oh you crippled and
disabled, you impoverished and ruined, by sacrific
ing to your country more than do all the Lincolns,
McClellans, Blairs, and Sewards ! Some day you
will ask a terrible account, and if not the present
day, posterity will avenge you.
It is very discouraging to witness that the Presi
dent shows little or no energy in his dealings with
incapacities, and what a mass of intrigues is used to
excuse and justify incapacity when the nation's life-
Atro06T, 1862.] DIARY. 251
blood runs in streams. Without the slightest hesi
tation any European government would dismiss an
incapable commander of an army, and the French
Convention, that type of revolutionary and nation-
saving energy, dealt even sharper with military and
other incapacities.
Regiments after regiments begin to pour in, to
make good the deadly mistakes of our rulers. The
people, as always, sublime, inexhaustible in its sac
rifices ! God grant that administrative incompetency
may become soon exhausted !
Mr. Seward told a diplomat that his (Seward's)
salary was $8,000, and he spends double the amount ;
thus sacrificing to the country $8,000. When I hear
such reports about him, I feel ashamed and sorrow
ful on his account. Such talk will not increase es
teem for him among foreigners and strangers ; and al
though I am sure that Mr. Seward intended to make
a joke, even as such it was worse than a poor one.
In his interview with a deputation composed of
Africo- Americans, Mr. Lincoln rehearsed all the
clap -trap concerning the races, the incompatibility
to live together, and other like bosh. Mr. Lincoln
promised to them an Eden — in Chiriqui. Mr. Lin
coln promised them — what he ought to know is
utterly impossible and beyond his power — that
they will form an independent community in a coun
try already governed by orderly and legally organ
ized States, as are New Grenada and Costa Rica.
Happily even for Mr. Lincoln's name, the logic of
human events will save from exposure his ignorance
252 DIARY. [AUGUST, 1862.
of international laws, and his too light and too quick
assertions. I pity Mr. Lincoln ; his honesty and
unfamiliarity with human affairs, with history, with
laws, and with other like etceteras, continually in
volve him in unnecessary scrapes.
The proclamation concerning the colonization is
issued. It is a display of ignorance or of humbug,
or perhaps of both. Some of the best among Amer
icans do not utter their condemnation of this colo
nization scheme, because the President is to be
allowed to carry out his hobby. The despots of the
Old World will envy Mr. Lincoln. Those despots
can no more carry out their hobbies. The Roi
s 'amuse had its time ; but the il bondo cani of some
here, at times, beats that of the Italina in Algcro.
The two letters of Greeley to the President show
that the old, indomitable lion begins to awake. As
to Mr. Lincoln's answer, it reads badly, and as for
all the rest, it is the eternal dodging of a vital
question.
Mr. Lincoln's equanimity, although not so stoical,
is unequalled. In the midst of the most stirring
and exciting — nay, death-giving — news, Mr. Lin
coln has always a story to tell. This is known and
experienced by all who approach him. Months ago
I was in Mr. Lincoln's presence when he received a
telegram announcing the crossing of the Mississippi
by Gen. Pope, at New Madrid. Scarcely had Mr.
Lincoln finished the reading of the dispatch, when
he cracked (that is the sacramental word) two not
very washed stories.
AX-GUST, 1862.] DIARY. 253
When the history of this administration shall be
come well known, contemporary and future genera
tions will wonder and be puzzled to know how the
most intelligent and enlightened people in the world
could produce such fruits and results of self-gov
ernment.
The rebel chiefs take the offensive ; they unfold a
brilliancy in conception and rapidity in execution
of which the best generals in any army might be
proud. McClellan's army was to be prevented
from uniting with Pope. But it seems that Pope
manoeuvres successfully, and approaches McClellan.
If only our domestic policy were more to the
point, England and France could not be complained
of. Mr. Mercier behaves here as loyally as can be
wished, and carefully avoids evoking any misunder
standings whatever. So do Louis Napoleon, Mr.
Thouvencl, Lord John Russell, notwithstanding
Mr. Seward's all-confusing policy. Mr. Mercier
never, never uttered in my presence anything what
ever which in the slightest manner could irritate
even the thinnest-skinned American.
As I expected, Louis Napoleon and Mr. Thouvencl
highly esteem Mr. Dayton ; and it will be a great
mistake to supersede Mr. Dayton in Paris by the
travelling agent of the sewing machine. It seems
that such a change is contemplated in certain quar
ters, because the agent parleys poor French. Such
a change will not be flattering, and will not be
agreeable to the French court, to the French cabinet,
and to the French good society.
254 DIARY. [AUGUST, 1862.
On the continent of Europe sympathy begins to be
unsettled, unsteady. As independence is to-day the
watchword in Europe, so the cause of the rebels ac
quires a plausible justification. Various are the
reasons of this new counter current. Prominent
among them is the vacillating, and by Europeans
considered to be INHUMAN, policy of Mr. Lincoln in
regard to slavery, the opaqueness of our strategy,
and the brilliancy of the tactics of the rebel generals,
and, finally, the incapacity of our agents to enlighten
European public opinion, and to explain the true
and horrible character of the rebellion. Repeatedly
I warned Mr. Seward, telling him that the tide of
public opinion was rising against us in Europe, and
I explained to him the causes ; but of course it was
useless, as his agents say the contrary, and say it for
reasons easily to be understood.
McClellan's army landed, and he is to be in com
mand of all the troops. I congratulate all therein
concerned about this new victory. Bleed, oh bleed,
American people ! Mr. Lincoln and consortes in
sisted that McClellan remain in command. SISTE
TANDEM CARNIFEX !
Mr. Roebuck, M. P., the gentleman ! About thir
ty years ago, when entering his public career as a
member for Bath, Mr. Roebuck was publicly slapped
in the face during the going on of the election. A
few years ago Mr. Roebuck went to Vienna in the
interests of some lucrative railroad or Lloyd specula
tion, and returned to England a fervent and devoted
admirer of the Hapsbvugs, and a rcviler of all
AUGUST, 1862.] DIARY. 255
that once was sacred to the disciple of Jeremy
Bentham.
General Halleck may become the savior of the
country. I hope and ardently wish that it may be
so, although his qualifications for it are of a rather
doubtful nature. Gen. Halleck wrote a book on
military science, as he wrote one on international
laws, and both are laborious compilations of other
people's labors and ideas. But perhaps Halleck, if
not inspired, may become a regular, methodical cap
tain. Such was Moreau.
Also, Gen. Halleck is not to take the field in per
son. I am told that it was so decided by Mr. Lin
coln, against Halleck's wish. What an anomalous
position of a commander of armies, who is not to see
a field of battle ! Such a position is a genuine, new
American invention, but it ought not to be patented,
at least not for the use of other nations. It is im
possible to understand it, and it will puzzle every
one having sound common sense.
Gen. Butler commits a mistake in taunting and
teasing the French population and the French con
sul in New Orleans. When Butler was going there,
Mr. Seward ought to have instructed him concern
ing our friendly relations with Louis Napoleon, and
concerning the character of the French consul in
New Orleans, who was not partial to secesh. There
may be some secesh French, but the bulk, if well
managed, would never1 take a decided position
against" us as long as we were on friendly terms with
Louis Napoleon.
256 DIARY. [AUGUST, 1862.
The President is indefatigable in his efforts to —
save slavery, and to uphold the policy of the New
York Herald.
It is said that General Hunter is recalled, and so
was General Phelps from New Orleans; General
Phelps could not coolly witness the sacrilegious mas
sacre of the slaves. The inconceivable partiality
of the President for McClellan may, after all, be
possibly explained by the fact that Mr. Lincoln and
Mr. Seward see in McClellan a — savior of slavery.
During two days' terrible fighting at Manassas, at
Bull Run, and all around, Pope cut his way through,
but the reinforcements from McClcllan's army in
Alexandria are slow in coming. McClellan and his
few pets among the generals may not object to see
Pope worsted. Such things happened in other ar
mies, even almost under the eyes of Napoleon, as in
the campaign on the Elbe, in 1813. Any one worth
the name of a general, when he has no special posi
tion to guard, and hears the roar of cannon, by
forced marches runs to the field of battle. Not any
special orders, but the roar of cannon, attracted and
directed Desaix to Marengo, and Mac Mahon to
Magenta. The roar of cannon shook the air be
tween Bull Run and Alexandria, and Gene
ral McClellan and others had positive orders to run
to the rescue of Pope.
I should not wonder if the President, enthu-
siasmed by this new exploit of McClellan, were to
nominate him for his, the President's, eventual suc
cessor ; Mr. Blair will back the nomination.
AUGUST, 1862.] DIARY. 257
It is said that during these last weeks, Wallach,
the editor of the unwashed Evening' Star, is in con
tinual intercourse with the President. Arcades
ambo.
McClellan reduced in command ; only when the
life of the nation was almost breathing its last.
This concession was extorted from Mr. Lincoln !
What will Mr. Seward say to it ?
17
SEPTEMBER, 1862.
Consummatnm est ! —Will the outraged people avenge itself? — McClel-
lan satisfies the President — After a year ! — The truth will be throt
tled — Public opinion in Europe begins to abandon us — The country
marching to its tomb — Hooker, Kearney, Heintzclman, Sigel, brave
and true men— Supremacy of mind over matter — Stanton the last
Roman — Inauguration of the pretorian regime — Pope accuses three
generals — Investigation prevented by McClellan — McDowell sacri
ficed—The country inundated with lies — The demoralized army de
clares for McClellan — The pretorians will soon finish with liberty —
Wilkes sent to the West Indian waters — Russia — Mediation — In
vasion of Maryland — Strange story about Stanton — Richmond never
invested— McClellan in search of the enemy — Thirty miles in six
days — The telegrams — Wadsworth — Capitulation ft" Harper's
Ferry — Five days' fighting — Brave Hooker wounded — No results
— No reports from McClellan — Tactics of the Maryland campaign —
Nobody hurt in the staff— Charmed lives — Wadsworth, Judge
Conway, Wade, Boutwell, Andrew — This most intelligent people be
come the laughing-stock of the world ! — The proclamation of eman
cipation — Seward to the Paisley Association — Future complica
tions — If Hooker had not been wounded! — The military situa
tion — Sigel persecuted by West Point — Three cheers for the
carriage and six ! — How the great captain was to catch the rebel army
— Interview with the Chicago deputation — Winter quarters — The
conspiracy against Sigel — Numbers of the rebel army — Letters of
marque.
THE intrigues, the insubordination of McClellan's
pets, have almost exclusively brought about the dis
asters at Manassas and at Bull Run, and brought
the country to the verge of the grave. But the
people are not to know the truth.
258
6EPTEM15KR, 1862.] DIARY. 259
CONSUBIMATUM ESI ! The people's honor is stained
— the country's cause on the verge of the grave.
Will this outraged people avenge itself on the four
or five diggers ?
Old as I am, I feel a more rending pain now than
I felt thirty years ago when Poland was entombed.
Here are at stake the highest interests of humanity,
of progress, of civilization. I find no words to
utter my feelings ; my mind staggers. It is filled
with darkness, pain, and blood.
Mr. Lincoln is the standard-bearer of the policy
of the New York Herald. So, before him, were
Pierce and Buchanan.
It is said that General McClcllan fully satisfied
the President of his (the General's) complete inno
cence as to the delays which exclusively generated
the last disasters ; also Gen. McClellan has justified
himself on military grounds. I wish the verdict of
innocence may be uttered by a court-martial of Eu
ropean generals. At any rate, the country was
thrown into an abyss.
After a year ! — One hundred thousand of the
best, bravest, the most devoted men slaughtered ;
hundreds and hundreds of millions squandered ; the
army again in the entrenchments of Washington ;
everywhere the defensive and losses ; the enemy on
the Potomac, perhaps to invade the free States ; but
McClellan is in command, his headquarters as bril
liant and as numerous as a year ago ; the mean
flunkeys at their post ; only the country's life-blood
pours in streams ; but — that is of no account.
260 DIARY. [SEPTEMBKB, 1862.
No acids are so dissolving and so corrosive as is
the air of Washington on patriotism. How few
resist its action ! Among the few are Stanton,
Chase (a passive patriot), Wadsworth, Dahlgreen,
and those grouping around Stanton ; so is Welles ;
likewise Fox ; but they are powerless. Washington
is likewise the greatest garroter of truth ; and I am
sure that the truth about the last battles will be
throttled and never elucidated.
September 3. — The Cabinets of France and of
England will have a very hard stand to resist the
pressure of public opinion, carried away by the skill
and by the plausible heroism of the rebels. Public
opinion will be clamorous that something be done
in favor of the rebels. Happily, nothing else can be
done but a war, and this saves us. But if the rebels
succeed without Europe, the more glory for their
chiefs, the more ignominy for ours. Public opinion
begins to abandon us in Europe. Already I have
explained some of the reasons for it.
The country is marching to its tomb, but the
grave-diggers will not confess their crime and their
utter incapacity to save it. This their stubbornness
is even a greater crime. Will Halleck warn the
country against McClellan's incapacity ?
We have such generals as Hooker, Heintzelman,
Kearney, etc., who fought continually, and with
odds against them, and who never were worsted.
Those three, among the best of the army, fought
under Pope and mutineercd not. In any other
country such men would receive large, even the
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 261
superior command ; here the palm belongs to the
incapable, the slow, and to the flatterer. The same
with Sigel. His corps is reduced to 6,000 men ;
common sense shows that he ought to have at least
25,000 under him. Sigel begged the President to
have more men ; the President sent him to Halleck
and McClellan, who both snubbed him off. By my
prayer Sigel, although disheartened, went to Stan-
ton, who received him friendly and warmly, and
promised to do his utmost. Stanton will keep his
word, if only the West Point envy will not prevent
him.
Hooker, Kearney, and Heintzelman wero not in
favor at the headquarters in the Peninsula, and
their commands have been continually disorganized
in favor of the pets of the Commander-in-Chief.
The country knows what the three braves did since
Yorktown down to the last day — the country knows
that at the last disasters at Bull Run these heroic
generals did their fullest duty. But not even their
advice is asked at the double headquarters. Stan-
ton alone cannot do everything. Rats may devour
a Hercules.
It seems certain that the rebel generals have vari
ous foreign officers in their respective staffs. The
rebels wish to assure the success of their cause ;
here many have only in view their personal success.
The President, although not a Blucher, may make
a Giieisenau out of Sigel, who has in view only the
success of the cause, and no prospects towards the
White House. Sigel would understand how to or
ganize a genuine staff.
262 D 1 A ft Y. [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
Most of the foreigners who came to serve here
came with the intention to fight for the sacred prin
ciple of freedom, and without any further views
whatever of career and aggrandizement. In this
respect Americans are not just towards these foreign
ers, and the great men at headquarters will prefer
to see all go to pieces than to use the capacity of
foreigners, above all in the artillery and for the
staff duties.
The mind — that is, Jeff. Davis, Jackson, Lee, etc.
— has the best of the matter — that is, Lincoln,
McClellan, Blair, and Seward ; however, these posi
tions are reversed when one considers the masses on
both sides. But on our side the matter commands
and presses down the mind ; on the rebel side the
mind of the chiefs vivifies, exalts, attracts, and di
rects the matter. And the results thereof are, that
not the rebellion^ but the North, is shaking.
As #, not only as the President, Mr. Lincoln rep
resents nothing beyond the unavoidable constitu
tional formula. For all other purposes, as an act
ing, directing, inspiring, or combining power or
agency, Mr. Lincoln becomes a myth. His reality
is only manifested by preserving slavery, by sticking
to McClellan, by distributing offices, by receiving
inspirations from Mr. Seward, and by digging the
country's grave. So it is from March 4, 1861, up
to this, September 5th, 1862. What else Mr. Lin
coln may eventually incarnate is not now percepti
ble.
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward piloted the country
SEPTEMBER, 1862.1 DIARY. 263
among breakers and rocks, from which to extricate
the country requires a man who is to be the burn
ing focus of the whole people's soul.
Other nations at times reached the bottom of an
abyss, and they came up again when from the tem
pest rending them emerged such a savior. But
here the formula may render impossible the appear
ance of such a savior. The formula is the nation's
hearse. The formula has neutralized the best men
in Congress, the best men in the Cabinet, as is Stan-
ton.
The people have decided not, propter vitam vi-
vendi perdere causas ; but the various formulas, the
schemers, the grave-diggers, and the aspirants for
the White House, think differently.
The almost daily changes made by Mr. Lincoln in
the command of the forces are the best evidences
of his good-intentioned — debility.
Harmony belongs to the primordial laws of na
ture ; it is the same for human societies. But here
no harmony exists between the purest, the noblest,
and the most patriotic portion of the people, and
the official exponent of the people's will, and of its
higher and purer aspirations. So here all jars disso-
nantly ; all is confusion, because avenged must be
every violation of nature's law.
I cannot believe that at this deadly crisis the sal
vation can come from Washington. The best man
here has not his free action. And the rest of them
are the country's curse. Mr. Lincoln, with McClel-
lan, Seward, Blair, Halleck, and scores of such, are
264 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
as able to cope with this crisis as to stop the revolu
tion of our planet.
Up to this day, from among those foremost, the
only man whose hands remain unstained with the
country's, his mother's, and his brethren's blood,
the last Roman, is Stanton.
September 1. — During last night troops marched
to meet the enemy, saluting with deafening shouts
and cheers the residence of McClellan ; spit-lickers
as a Kennedy, giving the sign by waving his hat.
Such shouts would cheer up the mind but for the
fact that they were mostly raised for the victory over
those who demanded an investigation of the causes
of slowness and insubordination, — those exclusive
causes of the defeat of Pope's army. Those shouts
were thrown out as defiance to justice, to truth,
and to law. Those shouts marked the inauguration
of the pretorian regime. General McClellan and
other generals have forced the President to postpone
the investigation into the conduct of the slow and
of the insubordinate generals, all three special fa
vorites of McClellan. General McClellan appeared
before the soldiers surrounded by his old identical
staff, by a tross of flatterers, and, Oh heavens ! in the
cortege Senator Wilson ! Oh, sancta not simplicitas,
but Oh, clear-sighted Republican !
Subsequently, I learned that Senator Wilson was
present for a moment, and only by a pure accident,
at that ovation.
Laeszt Dick dem Teufel bey*m Haare packen, so
hat Er Dich bey'm Kopfe, says Lessing, and so it
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 265
may become here with this first success of the pre-
torians, or even worse than pretorians ; these here
are Yanitschars of a Sultan.
Pope and his army accuse three generals of in
subordination and mutiny on the field of battle.
McClellan prevents investigation ; the brutal rule of
Yanitschars is inaugurated, thanks to you, Messrs.
Seward and Blair.
McDowell sacrificed to the Yanitschars ; he is the
scapegoat and the victim to popular fallacy, to the
imbecility of the press, and, above all, to the in
triguers and to the conspiracy of the mutinous pets
of McClellan. Weeks and weeks ago, I foretold to
McDowell that such would be his fate, and that only
in after-times history will be just towards him.
The country begins to be inundated and opin
ion poisoned by all kinds of the most glaring lies,
invented and spread by the staffs, and the im
becile, blind partisans of McClellan. Here are some
from among the lies.
In January (oh hear, oh hear !) General McClellan
with 50,000 men intended to make a flying (oh
hear, oh hear !) expedition to Richmond, but Lincoln
and Stanton opposed it. This lie divides itself into
two points. 1st lie. In January, nobody opposed
General McClellan's will, and, besides, he was sick.
2d lie. If he was so pugnacious in January, why
has he not made with the same number of men a
flying expedition only to Centreville, right under his
OQse?
Emanating from t&e staff, such a lie is sufficient
266 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
to show the military capacity of those who con
cocted it.
Second lie. That the expedition to Yorktown and
the Peninsula strategy were forced upon McClellan.
I hope that the Americans have enough memory
left, and enough self-respect to recollect the truth.
Further, the above staff asserts that, when the
truth will be known about the campaign, and the
fightings in the Chickahominy, then justice will be
done to McClellan.
Always and everywhere lost battles, bad and ig
norant generalship, require explanations, justifica
tions, and commentaries. Well-fought battles are
justified on the spot, the same day, and by results.
No one asks or makes comments upon the fighting
of Jackson. Austerlitz, Jena, were commented on,
explained, some of the chiefs were justified, but —
by Austrian and Prussian commentators.
Until to-day French writers discuss, analyze, and
comment upon the fatal battle of Waterloo. At
Waterloo Napoleon was in the square of his heroic
guards ; but during the seven days' fighting on the
Chickahominy, what regiment, not to say a square,
saw in its midst the American Napoleon ?
A thousand others, similar to the above-mentioned
lies, will be or are already circulated ; the mass of
the people will use its common sense, and the lies
must perish.
On September 7th, Gen. McClellan gave his word
to the President to start to the *army at 12 o'clock,
but started at 4 P. M. with a long train of well-packed
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 267
wagons for himself and for his staff. To bo sure,
Leo, Jackson, and all the other rebel chiefs together,
have not such a train ; if they had, they would not
bo to-day on the Potomac and in Maryland. Most
certainly those quick-moving rebels start at least an
hour earlier than they are expected to do.
September 9. — Up to this day Mr. Lincoln
ought to have discovered whose advice transformed
him into a standard-bearer of the policy of the New
York Herald, and made him push the country to
the verge of the grave ; and, nevertheless, Mr. Lin
coln is deaf to the voice of all true and pure pat
riots who point out the malefactors.
Secondary events $ as a lost battle, etc., depend
upon material causes ; but such primordial events
as is the thorough miscarriage of Mr. Lincoln's anti-
rebellion policy, — such events arc generated by
moral causes.
Jefferson Davis, Lee, Jackson, and all the gen
erals down to the last Southern bush-whacker, incar
nate the violent and hideous passion of slavery, now
all-powerful throughout the South. Here, Lincoln,
Seward, McClellan, Blair, Halleck, etc., incarnate
the negation of the purest and noblest aspirations
of the North. Stanton alone is inspired by a na
tional patriotic idea. No unity, no harmony between
the people and the leaders ; this discord must gen
erate disasters.
All over the country the lie is spread that the
army demanded the reappointment of McClellan.
First, the three mutinous generals did it ; but not
268 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER 1862.
a Kearney, the Bayard of America ; very likely not
Hooker and Heintzelman — all of them soldiers,
patriots, and men of honor ; nor very likely was it
demanded by Keyes. I do not know positively what
was the conduct of Gen. Sumner. Gen. Burnside
owes what he is, glory and all, to McClellan. Burn-
side's honest gratitude and honest want of judgment
have contributed more than anything else to inau
gurate the regime of the pretorians, to justify mu
tiny. Halleck's conduct in all this is veiled in
mystery ; it is so at least for the present ; and as
truth will be kept out of sight, the country may
never know the truth about those shameful proceed
ings.
I learn that Heintzelman, against his own judg
ment, agreed in the McClellan movement. Well, if
this is true, then, of course, the army, for a long
time misled by uninterrupted intrigues, misled by
papers such as the New York Herald and the Times,
— the army or the soldiers mightily contributed to
bring about this fatal crisis. An army composed of
intelligent Americans, blinded, stultified by intrigu
ers, declares for a general who never, up to this
day, covered with glory his or the army's name.
After this nothing more is to be expected, and no
disaster on the field of battle, no dissolution of a
national principle, can astonish my mind. Cursed
be those who thus demoralized the sound judgment
of the soldiers ! Cursed be my personal experience
of men and of things which makes me despair!
But when an army or soldiers become intellectually
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 269
brought down to such a standard, then the holiest
cause will always be lost. Oh for a man to save the
cause of humanity ! But if even such a man should
appear, these prctorians will turn against him.
The pretorians, with the New York Herald as
their flag, will soon finish with liberty at home.
McClellan, Barlow, the brothers Wood, and Bennett,
may very soon be at the helm, with the 100,000 pre
torians for support. Similia similibus ; and here
disgrace is to cure disgrace.
These helpless grave-diggers, above all, Scward,
are on the way to pick a quarrel with England,
sending a flying gunboat fleet under Wilkcs into
the West Indian waters. At this precise moment it
were better to be very cautious, and rather watch
strongly our coasts with the same gunboats.
September 11. — A military genius at once finds
out the point where blows arc to be struck, and
strikes them with lightning-like speed. The rebels
act in this manner ; but what point was found out,
what blows were ever dealt by McClellan ?
Individuals similar to McClellan were idolized by
the Roman pretorians, and this idolatry marks the
epoch of the utmost demoralization and degradation
of the Roman empire. Witnessing such a phenome
non in an army of American volunteers, one must
give up in despair any confidence in manhood and
in common sense.
The Journal of St. Petersburg of August 6th
semi-officially refutes the insinuations that Russia
intends to recognize the South, or to unite with
270 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
France and England for any such purpose, or for
mediation. The language of the article is noble and
friendly, as is all which up to this day has been done
by Alexander II. Mr. Stoeckl, the Russian minis
ter here, considerably contributes that such sound
and friendly views on the condition of our affairs are
entertained by the Russian Cabinet.
September 11. — Imbeciles agitate the question of
mediation. European cabinets will not offer it now,
and nobody, not even the rebels, would accept. No
possible terms and basis exist for any mediation. A
Solomon could not find them out. If Jackson and
Lee were to shell Washington, then only the foreign
ministers may be requested to step in and to settle
the terms of a capitulation or of an evacuation.
The foreign ministers here could act as mediators
only if asked ; not otherwise. I am sure it will
come out that the invasion of Maryland by the
rebels is made under the pressure exercised in Rich
mond by the Maryland chivalry in the service of the
rebellion. These runaways probably promised an
insurrection in Maryland, provided a rebel force
crosses the Potomac. (Wrote it to England.)
All around helplessness and confusion. Consci
entiously I make all possible efforts to record what
I believe to be true, and then truth will take care of
herself.
After the study of the campaigns of Frederick II.,
above all, after the study of those marvellous cam
paigns, combinations, manoeuvres of Napoleon, to
witness every day the combinations of McClellan is
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] * DIARY. 271
more disgusting, more nauseous for the mind, than
can be for the stomach the strongest dose of emetic.
The last catastrophe at Bull Run and at Manassas
has a slight resemblance with the catastrophe at
Waterloo. The conduct of the mutinous generals
here is similar to the conduct of some of the French
generals during the battle of Ligny and Quatre-
Bras. But here was mutiny, and there demoraliza
tion produced by general and deeply rooted and
fatall}" unavoidable causes. The demoralization of
the French generals came at the end of a terrible
epoch of struggles and sacrifices, of material exhaus
tion, when the faith in the destinies of Napoleon
was extinct ; here mutiny and demoralization seize
upon the newly-born era.
September 13. — What a good-natured people are
the Americans ! A regiment of Pennsylvania infan
try quartered for the night on the sidewalk of the
streets ; officers, of course, absent ; the poor sol
diers stretched on the stones, when so many empty
large buildings, when the empty (intellectually and
materially empty) White House could have given to
the soldiers comfortable night quarters. It can give
an idea how they treat the soldiers in the field, if
here in Washington they care so little for them.
But McClellan has forty wagons for his staff, and
forty ambulances — no danger for the latter to be
used. In European armies aristocratic officers
would not dare to treat soldiers in this way — to
throw them on the pavement without any necessity.
More than once in my life, after heavy fighting,
272 DIARY. * [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
I laid down the knapsack for a cushion, snow for a
mattrass and for a blanket ; but by the side of the sol
diers, the generals, the staffs, and the officers shared
similar bedsteads.
I hear strange stories about Stanton, and about his
having ruefully fallen in McClellan's lap. If so,
then one more man, one more illusion, and one
more creed in manhood gone overboard, drowned
in meanness, in moral cowardice, and subserviency.
The worshippers of strategy and of Gen. McClel-
lan try to make the public swallow, that the invest
ment of Richmond, by him was a magnificent display
of science, and would have been a success but for
50,000 more men under his command.
To invest any place whatever is to cut that place
from the principal, if not from all communications
with the country around, and thus prevent, or make
dangerous or difficult, the arrival of provisions, of
support, etc.
Our gunboats, etc., in the York and the 'James
rivers have virtually invested Richmond on the east
ern side ; but that part of the Peninsula did not con
stitute the great source of life for the rebel army.
The principal life-arteries for Richmond ran through
four-fifths of a circle, beginning from the southern
banks of the James river and running to the south
ern banks of the Rapidan and of the Rappahan-
nock. Through that region men, material, provis
ions poured into Richmond from the whole South,
and that whole region around Richmond was left
perfectly open ; but strategy concentrated its wisdom
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 273
on the comparatively indifferent eastern side of the
Cnickahominy marshes, and cut off the rebels from
— nothing at all.
September 13. — General McClellan, in search of
the enemy, during the first six days makes thirty
miles ! Finds the enemy near Hagerstown. No
more time for strategy.
September 14. — General McClellan telegraphs to
General Halleck (ineliorcs ambo) that he, McClel
lan, has " the most reliable information that the
enemy is 190,000 strong- in Maryland and in Penn
sylvania, besides 70,000 on the oilier side of the
Potomac" (The same bosh about the numbers as
in the Peninsula.)
The Generals Burnside, Hooker, Suniner, Reno,
fought the battle at Hagerstown, and drove the
enemy before them. General McClellan reports a
victory, but expects the enemy to renew the fighting
next day in a considerable force — (as at Williams-
burg). McClellan telegraphs to Halleck, "Look
for an attack on Washington." The enemy retreats
to recross the Potomac !
September 15. — General Wadsworth suggested
to the President one of those bold movements by
which campaigns are terminated by one blow : " To
send Heintzelman and him, Wadsworth, with some
25,000 men, to Gordonsville (here and in Baltimore
about 90,000 men), and thus cut off the enemy
from Richmond, and prevent him from rallying his
forces." But General Halleck opposes such a Mu-
rat's dash, on account of McClellan's "looked-for
274 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
attack on "Washington " — by his, MeClellan's, imag
ination.
September 17. — When I wrote the above about
Wads Vfor th and Heintzelman, I was under the im
pression that the victory announced by McCIcllan,
Sept. 14, was more decisive ; that as he had fresh the
whole corps of Fitz John Porter, and the greatest
part of that of Franklin, and other supports sent
him from "Washington, he would give no respite
io the enemy, and push him into the Potomac. It
turned out differen%.
The loss by capitulation of Harper's Ferry. It is
a blow to us, and very likely a disgraceful affair,
not for the soldiers, but for ftie commanders.
September 19 . — Five days' fighting. Our brave
Hooker wounded ; tremendous loss of life on both
sides, and no decisive results. These last battles,
and those on the Chickahominy, that of Shiloh,
in one word all the lightings protracted throughout
several consecutive days, are almost unexam
pled in history. These horrible episodes establish
the bravery, the endurance of the soldiers, the
bravery and the ability of some among the com
manders of the corps, of the divisions, etc., and the
absence of any generalship in the commander.
September 20. — Until this day Gen. McClel-
lan has not published one single detailed report
about any of his operations since the evacuation
of Manassas in March. Thus much for the staff of
the army of the Potomac. We shall see what
detailed report he will publish of the campaign in
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 275
Maryland. McClellan's bulletins from Maryland
arc twins to his bulletins from the Peninsula ; and
there may be very little difference between the
gained victories. To-day he is ignorant of the
movements of the enemy, and has more than 30,-
000 fresh troops in hand.
As in the Peninsula, so in Maryland. Although
having nearly one-third more men than the ene
my, General McClellan never forced the enemy
to engage at once its whole force, never attacked
the rebels on their whole line, and never had any
positive notion about the number and the position of
the opposing forces.
The rebels had the Potomac in their rear ; our
army pressed them in front, and — the rebels escaped.
I appeal to such military heroes as Hooker ; I
appeal to thousands of our brave soldiers, from
generals down to the rank and file, and further I
appeal to all women with hearts and brains here and
in Europe.
September 20. — Gen. Mansfield killed at the head
of his brigade. I ask his forgiveness for all the criti
cism made upon him in this diary. Last year, at
the beginning of the war, Gen. Mansfield acted under
the orders of Gen. Scott. This explains all.
As in the slaughters of the Chickahominy, so in
the Maryland slaughters, nobody hurt in McClcllan's
numerous staff. Thank Heaven ! Not only his life
is charmed, but the charm extends over all who sur
round him, — men and beasts.
276 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
A malediction sticks to our cause. Hooker badly,
very badly wounded. Hooker fought the greatest
number of fights, — was never worsted in the Penin
sula, nor in the August disasters, and he alone has
the supreme honor of a nick-name, by the troopers'
baptism : the Fighting Joe. Hooker, not McClel-
lan, ought to command the army. But no pestilen
tial Washington clique, none of the West-Point
ers, back him, and the pets, the pretorians, may
have refused to obey his orders.
After the escape of the rebels from Manassas in
March, and after the evacuation of Yorktown, all
the intriguers and traitors grouped around the New
York Herald, and the imbeciles around the New
York Times, prized high the masterly strategy and its
bloodless victories. Now, in dead, by powder and
disease, in crippled, etc., McClellan destroyed about
100,000 men, and the country's honor is bleeding,
the country's cause is on the verge of a precipice.
How rare are men of civic heroism, of fearless
civic courage ; men of the creed : perisse man nom
mais que la patrie soit sauvte.
General Wadsworth feels more deeply and more
painfully the disasters, nay, the disgrace, of the
country, than do almost all with whom I meet
here. During the Congress, similar were the 'feel
ings of Senator Wade, Judge Potter, and of
many other Congressmen in both tno Houses. So
fool Boutwell, Andrew, the Governor of Massachu
setts, and I am sure many, many over the country.
SEPTEMBER, 1882.] DIARY. 277
But the sensation-men and preachers, lecturers, etc.,'
all are to be * * * *
September 22. — By Mr. Seward's policy and by
McClellan's strategy and. war-bulletins the bravest
and the most intelligent people became the laugh
ing-stock of Europe and of the world. And thus is
witnessed the hitherto in history unexampled phe
nomenon of a devoted and brave people of twenty
millions, mastering all the wealth and the resources
of modern civilization, worsted and kept at bay by
four to five million rebels, likewise brave, but almost
beggared, and cut off from all external communica
tions.
Sept. 23. Proclamation conditionally abolishing
slavery from 1863. The conditional is the last
desperate effort made by Mr. Lincoln and by Mr.
Seward to save slavery. Poor Mr. Lincoln was
obliged to strike such a blow at his mammy ! The
two statesmen found out that it. was dangerous
longer to resist the decided, authoritative will of the
masses. The words " resign," " depose," " im
peach," were more and more distinct in the popular
murmur, and the proclamation was issued.
Very little, if any, credit is due to Mr. Lincoln
or to Mr. Seward for having thus late and reluc
tantly legalized the stern will of the immense
majority of the American people. For the sake of
sacred truth and justice I protest before civilization,
humanity, and posterity, that Mr. Lincoln and Mr.
Seward intrinsically are wholly innocent of this
great satisfaction given to the right, and to national
honpr. 24
278 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1862,
The absurdity of colonization is preserved in the
proclamation. How could it have been otherwise ?
But if the rebellion is crushed before January
1st, 1863, what then ? If the rebels turn loyal be
fore that term ? Then the people of the North will
be cheated. Happily for humanity and for national
honor, Mr. Lincoln's and Mr. Seward's benevolent
expectations will be baffled; the rebels will spurn
the tenderly proffered leniency; these rebels are so
ungrateful towards those who " cover the weakness
of the insurgents," &c. (See the celebrated, and
by the American press much admired, despatch in
May or June, 1862, Seward to Adams.)
The proclamation is written in the meanest and
the most dry routine style ; not a word to evoke a
generous thrill, not a word reflecting the warm and
lofty comprehension and feelings of the immense
majority of the people on this question of emanci
pation. Nothing for humanity, nothing to humanity.
Whoever drew it, be he Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Seward,
it is clear that the writer was not in it either with
his heart or with his soul ; it is clear that it was
done under moral duress, under the throttling pres
sure of events. How differently Stanton would
have spoken !
General Wads worth truly says, that never a
noble subject was more belittled by the form in
which it was uttered.
Brazilian m s are much disturbed by the
proclamation.
Sept. 23. In his answer to the Paisley Parlia-
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 279
mcntary Reform Association, Mr. Scward complains
that the sympathy of Europe turns now for se
cession.
O Mr. Sc\vard,Mr. Seward, who is it that contrib
uted to turn the current against the cause of right
and of humanity ? Months ago I and others warned
you ; the premonitory signs and the reasons of this
change have been pointed out to you. Now you slan
der Europe, of which you know as little as of the in
habitants of the moon. The generous populations
of the whole of Europe expected and waited for a
positive, unhesitating, clear recognition of human.
rights; day after day the generous European minds
expected to see some positive, authoritative fact con
firm that lofty conception which, at the start of this
rebellion, they had of the cause of the North. But
the pure, generous tendencies of the American peo
ple became officially, authoritatively misrepresented ;
the public opinion in Europe became stuffed with
empty generalizations, with official but unfulfilled
prophecies, and with cold declamations. Those
official generalizations, prophecies, and declama
tions, the supineness shown by the administration in
the recognition of human rights, all this began to be
considered in Europe as being sanctioned by the
whole American people ; and generous European
hearts and minds began to avert in disgust from the
misrepresented cause of the North.
Two issues are before history, before the philosophy
of history, and before the social progress of our race.
The first issue is the struggle between the pure
280 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
democratic spirit embodied in the Free States, and
the fetid remains of the worst part of humanity
embodied in the South. The second issue is between
the perennial vitality of the principle of self-govern
ment in the people, and the transient and acci
dental results of the self-government as manifested in
Mr. Lincoln, in Mr. Seward, and their followers. I
hope that this Diary will throw some light on the
second issue, and vindicate the perennial against
the transient and the accidental.
Sept. 24. If the events of this war should pro
gress as they are foreshadowed in the proclamation of
September 22, then the application of this proclama
tion may create inextricable complications. Not only
in one and the same State, but in one and the same
district, nay, even in the same township, after Janu
ary 1st, 1863, may be found Africo-Americans, por
tions of whom are emancipated, the others in bondage.
But the stern logic of events will save the illogical,
pusillanimous, confused half-measure, as it now is.
(OSteffens!)
General McClellan confesses that if Hooker had
not been wounded, then the road, by which the re
treat of the rebels might have been cut off, would
have been taken. Suclf a declaration is the most
emphatic recognition of Hooker's superior military
capacity. Seldom, however, has the loss of a general
commanding only en seconder a wing, as did Hooker,
decided the fortunes of the day. Why did not
McClellan take the road himself, after Hooker was
obliged to leave the field ? When Desaix, Bcssieres,
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 281
and Lannes fell, Napoleon nevertheless won the
respective battles.
Sept. 25. The military position of the rebels in
Winchester seems to me one of the best they ever
held in this war. Winchester is the centre of which
Washington, Harper's Ferry, Williamsport, nay,
even Wheeling, seem to be the circumference.
Our army under McClellan is almost beyond the
circle, crosses not the Potomac, and is now only to
watch the enemy. So much for the great McClel-
lan's victory. Truly, the enemy may be taken in
the rear, its communications with Richmond, <fcc.,cut
off and destroyed ; but we are safe on the Potomac,
and this is sufficient. McClellan is the man of large
conceptions and rapid execution. The best generals
are /tors de combat; as to ILilleck, 0, it is not to
think, not to speak. Well, I may be mistaken, but
I clearly see all this on the map of Virginia.
Sept. 25. The West Point spirit persecutes Sigel
with the utmost rage. The West Point spirit seem
ingly wishes to have Sigcl dishonored, defeated,
even if the country be thereby destroyed. The
Ilallecks, £c., keep him in a subordinate position;
three days ago his corps was a little over seven
thousand, almost no cavalry, and most of the
artillery without horses, and he in front.
The more I scrutinize the President's thus called
emancipation proclamation, the more cunning and
less good will and sincerity I find therein. I hope
I am mistaken. But the proclamation is only an
act of the military power, — is evoked by military
24*
282 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
necessity, — and not a civil, social, humane act of
justice and equity.
The only good to be derived from this proclama
tion is, that for the first time the word freedom, and
a general comprehension of" emancipation," appear
in an official act under the sanction of the formula,
and are inaugurated into the official, the constitutional
life of the nation. In itself it is therefore a great
event for a people so strictly attached to legality and
to formulas.
I do not recollect to have read in the history of
any great, or even of a small captain, — above all
of such a one when between thirty-four and thirty-
six years old, — that he followed the army under
his command in a travelling carriage and six, when
the field of operations extended from fifty to sev
enty miles. Three cheers for McClellan, for his
carriage and six !
HOW THE GREAT CAPTAIN WAS TO CATCH THE WHOLE
REBEL ARMY IN MANASSAS, IN FEBRUARY AND
MARCH, A. D. 1862.
It was to have been done by a brilliant and un
surpassable stroke of combined strategy, tactics,
manoeuvres, marches, and swimmings ; also on land
and water. (0, hear ! 0, hear ! )
As every body knows, the rebels were encamped
in the so fearful strongholds of Centreville and
Manassas, all the time fooling the commander-
in-chief of the federal army in relation to their
immense numbers. To attack the rebels in front,
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 283
*
or to surround them by the Occoquan and Brents-
ville, would have been a too — simple operation;
by a special, an immense, space-embracing anaconda
strategy, the rebel army was to be cut off from the
whole of rebcldom, and forced to surrender en masse
to the inventor of (the not yet patented, I hope)
bloodless victories. To accomplish such an im
mense result, a fleet of transports was already or
dered to be gathered at Annapolis. On them in
ten or fifteen days (0, hear !) an army of fifty to
sixty thousand, most completely equipped, was to
be embarked, plus forty thousand in Washington,
all this to sail under the personal command of the
general- in-chief, and sail towards Richmond. Rich
mond taken, the rebel army at Manassas would have
been cut off, and obliged to surrender on any terms.
The above splendid conception was, and still is,
peddled among the army and among the nation by
the admirers of, and the devotees of, anaconda
strategy.
The expedition was to land at the mouth of the
Tappahannock, a small port, or rather a creek, used
for shipping of a small quantity of tobacco. As the
port or creek has only some small attempts at
wharves, the landing of such an enormous army, with
parks of artillery, with cavalry, pontoons, and ma
terial for constructing bridges, — the landing would
not have been executed in weeks, if in months ; but
the projector of the plan, perfectly losing the notion
of time, calculated for ten days. From that port
i\\e,Jlying expedition was to march directly on Rich-
D 1 A R T . [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
x
mond through a country having only common field
and dirt roads, and this in a season when all roads
generally are in an impassable condition, through a
country intersected by marshy streams, principal
among them the Matapony and the Pamunkey — to
march towards Richmond and the Chickahominy
marshes. It seems that Chickahominy exercised an
attractive, Armida-like charm on the great strate-
gian. An army loaded with such immense trains
would have sufficiently destroyed all the roads, and
rendered them impassable for itself; and the flying
expedition would at once have been transformed
into an expedition sticking in the mud, simikir -to
that subsequent in the peninsula. The enemy was
in possession of Fredericksburg and of the railroad
to Hanover Court House on one flank, and of all
the best roads north of and through Chickahominy
marshes on the other flank. T\\& flying- expedition
would have had for base Tappahannock and a dirt
road. 0 strategy ! 0 stuff!
The much-persecuted General McDowell exposed
the worse than crudity of the brilliant conception.
By doing this, McDowell saved the country, the ad
ministration, and the strategian from immense losses
and from a nameless shame. It is due to the people
that the administration lay before the public the
scheme and the refutation. A look on the map of
Virginia must convince even the simplest mind of
the brilliancy of this conception.
During all this time spent in such masterly opera
tions, the rebel army in Manassas was to quietly
SEPTEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 285
look on, to wait, and not move, not retreat en Rich
mond. Early in March, at once the rebel army,
ahvays undisturbed, quietly disappeared from Ma-
nassas ; and this is the best evidence of the depth
of that brilliant combination, peddled under the
name of the flying* expedition to Richmond, pro
jected for January, February, or March. I appeal
to the verdict of sound reason ; the parties are,
common sense versus anaconda strategy and blood
less victories.
Sept. "21. The proclamation issued by the war
power of the President is not yet officially notified
to those who alone are to execute it — the armies
and their respective commanders. Who is to be
taken in ? The papers publish a detailed account
of an interview between the President and an anti-
slavery deputation from Chicago. The deputation
asked for stringent measures in the spirit of the law
of Congress, which orders the emancipation of the
slaves held by the rebels. The President combated
the reasons alleged by the deputation, and tried to
establish the danger and the inefficiency of the
measure. A few days after the above-mentioned de
bate, the President issued the proclamation of Sep
tember 22. Are his heart, his soul, and his convic
tions to be looked for in the* debate, or in the proc
lamation ?
The immense majority of the people, from the in
most of its heart, greets the proclamation — a proof
how deeply and ardently was felt its necessity. The
gratitude shown to Mr. Lincoln for having thus exe-
28(5 DIARY. [SEPTEMBER, 1862.
cutcd the will of his master, — this gratitude is the
best evidence how this whole people is better, has a
loftier comprehension of right and duty, than have
its elected servants.
McClellan already speaks that the campaign is
finished, and the army is to go into winter quarters.
If the people, if the administration, and if the army
will stand this, then they will justly deserve the
scorn of the whole civilized and uncivilized werld.
But with such civil and military chiefs all is pos
sible, all may be expected to be included in their
programme of — vigorous operations.
Sept. 28. For some weeks I watch a conspiracy
of the West Pointers, of the commanders-iii-chief, of
the staffs, and of the double know-nothing cliques
united against Sigel. The aim seems to be to put
Sigel and his purposely-reduced and disorganized
forces in such a condition and position that he may
be worsted or destroyed by the enemy. To avoid
dishonoring the forces under him, to avoid exposing
them to slaughter, and to avoid being thus himself
dishonored, Sigel ought to resign, and make public
the reasons of his resignation. A few days ago, I
wrote and warned the Evening Post; but — but —
The Richmond papers confirm what I supposed
concerning the motives-winch pushed the rebel army
across the Potomac. As the Marylanders rose not
in arms, and joined not the rebel army, the invaders
had nothing else to do but to retreat and to recross
the Potomac. McClellan ought to have thrown them
into the river, which Hooker, if not wounded, would
have done, or if he had the command of our army.
SEPTEMBER, 1362.] DIARY. 287
The rebels would have retreated into Virginia,
even without being attacked by McClellan, even if
he only followed them, say at one day's distance.
Not having destroyed the rebels, McClellan, in real
ity, and from the military stand point, accomplished
very little — near to nothing. Hooker estimates the
rebel force, at the utmost, at eighty thousand men,
and that is all that they could have. McClellan
had about one hundred and twenty thousand.
And — and he is to be considered the savior of
Maryland and of Pennsylvania. 0, good American
people ! The genuine Napoleon won all his great
battles against armies which considerably outnum
bered his.
Mr. So ward menaces England with issuing letters
of marque against the Southern privateers. The
menace is ridiculous, because it will not be carried
out, and, if carried out, it will become still more
ridiculous ; it would be a very poor compliment to
the navy to use the whole power of private enter
prise against a few rovers, and it would be an offi
cial recognition of the rebels in the condition of bei-
O
ligercnts. Quousque tandem — 0 SEWARD — abutere
patientiam nostram ?
Sept. 30. Nearly three weeks after the battle of
Antietam, General McClellan publishes what he
and they call a report of his operations in Mary
land ; in all not twenty lines, and devoted princi
pally to establish — on probabilities — the numerical
losses of the enemy. The report is a fit pendant to
his bulletins ; is excellent for bunkum, and to make
other people justly laugh at us.
288 DIARY. [OCTOBER 1862.
OCTOBER, 1862.
Costly Infatuation — The do-nothing strategy — Cavalry on lame horses
— Bayonet charges — Antietam — Effect of the proclamation — Disas
ters in the West — The abolitionists not originally hostile to McClellan —
Helplessness in the War Department — Devotedness of the people —
McClellan and the proclamation — Wilkes — Colonel Key — Routine en
gineers — Rebel raid into Pennsylvania — Stanton's sincerity — O, un-
fighting strategians! — The administration a success — De gustibus — •
Stuart's raid — West Point— St. Domingo — Tie President's letter to
McClellan — Broad church — The elections — The Republican party
gone — The remedy at the polls — McClellan wants to be relieved —
Mediation — Compromise — The rhetors. — The optimists — The for
eigners — Scott and Buchanan — Gladstone — Foreign opinion and ac
tion — Both the extremes to be put down — Spain — Fremont's campaign
against Jackson — Seward's circular — General Scott's gift — " O, could
I go to a camp I " — McClellan crosses the Potomac — Prays for rain —
Fevers decimate the regiments — Martindale and Fitz John Porter —
The political balance to be preserved — New regiments — O, poor
country !
WITH what a bloody sacrifice of men this people
pays for its infatuation in McClellan, for the moral
cowardice of its official leaders, and the intrigues and
the imbecility of the regulars, of some among the
West Pointers, of traitors led by the New York
Herald, by the World, and by certain Unionists on
the outside, and secessionists at heart ! All these
*
combined nourish the infatuation. All things com
pared, Napoleon cost not so much .to the French
people, and at least Napoleon paid it in glory. Miiid
OCTOBER, 1862.] DIARY. 289
and heart sicken to witness all this here. The
question to-day is, not to strengthen other generals,
as Heintzelmaii and Sigel, and to take the enemy
in the rear, but to give a chance to McClellan to
win the ever-expected, and not yet by him won,
great battle. McClellan continually calls for more
men ; all the vital forces of the people are absorbed
by him ; and when he has large numbers, he is in
capable of using and handling them ; so it was at
the Chickahominy, so it was at Aiitietam. In the
way that McClellan acts now, lie may use up all the
available forces of the people, if nobody has the
courage to speak out ; besides, any warning voice
is drowned in the treacherous intrigues of the
clique, in imbecility and infatuation.
At the meeting of the governors, at the various
public conventions, in the thus called public reso
lutions — platforms, in one word — wherever, in any
way. North, West, and East, the public life of the
people has made its voice heard : a vigorous prosecu
tion of the war was, and is, earnestly recommended
to the administration. All this will be of no avail.
By this time, by bloody and bitter experience,
the American people ought to have learned it.
With his civil and military aids and lieutenants,
as the McClellans, the Hallecks, the Sewards, Mr.
Lincoln has been at work ; and at the best, they
have shown their utter incapacity, if not ill-will, to
carry the war on vigorously and upon strictly mili
tary principles. Many persons in Washington know
that Mr. iSeward last winter firmly backed the do-
25
290 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
nothing- strategy, in the firm belief that the rebels
would be worried out, and submit without fighting.
To those statesmen and Napoleons, Carnots, &c.,
it is as impossible to manoeuvre with rapidity, to
strike boldly and decidedly, as to dance on their
well-furnished heads. Only such a good-natured
people as the Americans can expect something from
that whole cater ca. To expect from Mr. Lincoln's
Napoleons, Carnots, <fcc., vigorous and rapid mili
tary operations, is the same as to mount cavalry on
thoroughly lame horses, and order it to charge d
fond de train.
The worshippers of McClellan peddle that the
Antietam victory became neutralized because the
enemy fell back on its second and third line. What
ever may be in this falling back on lines, and ac
cepting all as it is represented, one thing is certain,
that when commanders win victories, generally they
give no time to the enemy to fall back in order on
its second and third lines. But every thing gets a
new stamp under the new Napoleon. A few hours
after the Antietam battle, General McClellan tele
graphed that he " knew not if the enemy retreated
into the interior or to the Potomac." 0, 0 !
Many from among the European officers here
have some experience of the manoeuvring of large
bodies — experience acquired on fields of battle, and
on reviews, and those camp manoeuvres annually
practised all over Europe. In this way the Eu
ropean officers, more or less, have the coup d'ceil
for space and for the terrain, so necessary when ail
OCTOBER, 1362.] DIARY. 291
army is to be put in positions on a field of tattle,
and which coup (.Vail few young American officers
had the occasion to acquire. If judiciously selected
for the duties of the staffs, such European officers
would he of use and support to generals hut for jeal
ousy and the West Point cliques.
During this whole war I hear every body, but
above all the West Point wiseacres and strategians,
assert that charges with the bayonet and hand-to
hand fighting are exceedingly rare occurrences in
the course of any campaign. It is useless to speak
to all those great judges of experience and of
history.
In the account of the battles of Ligny and of
Waterloo, Thiers mentions four charges with the
bayonet and hand-to-hand fighting at Ligny, and
nine at Waterloo, wherein one was made by the
English, one was made by Prussians and by French,
and one by the French with bayonet against English
cavalry. In 1831 the Poles used the bayonet more
than it was used in any one campaign known in
history. 0, West Point !
It deserves to be noticed that the conspirators
against Pope and McDowell, and the pet pretoriuns
of September G and 7, distinguished themselves not
very much in the battle of Antietam. Hooker com
manded McDowell's corps.
To the number of evils inflicted upon this country
by the McClellan infatuation, must be added the fact
that many young men, with otherwise sound intel
lects, have been taken in, stultified, poisoned beyond
292 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
cure, by high-sou nding words, as strategy, all-em
bracing scientific combinations, <fcc. — words identi
fied with incapacity, defeats, and intrigue.
In all probability, Hooker alone, when he fought,
had a fixed plan at the Antietam battle. As for a gen
eral plan, aiming either to throw the enemy into the
river, or to cut him from the river, or to accomplish
something final and decisive, seemingly no such
plan existed. It looks as if they had ignored, at the
headquarters, what kind of positions were occupied
by the enemy ; and the only purpose seems to have
been to fight, but without having any preconceived
plan. This, at least, is the conclusion from the
manner in which the battle was fought. If any
plan had existed, the brave army would have exe
cuted it ; but the enemy retreated in order, and
rather unmolested. As always, so this time, the
bravery of the army did every thing ; and, as a
matter of course, the generalship did — nothing.
Oct. 4. , The proclamation of September 22
may not produce in Europe the effect and the en
thusiasm which it might have evoked if issued a year
ago, as an act of justice and of self-conscientious
force, as an utterance of the lofty, pure, and ardent
aspirations and will of a high-minded people. Eu
rope may see now in the proclamation an action of
despair made in tiie duress of events ; (and so it is in
reality for Mr. Lincoln, Seward, and their squad.)
And in this way, a noble deed, outpouring from the
soul of the people, is reduced to pygmy and mean
proportions by^ . The name is on every body's
lips.
OCTOBER, 1862.] DIARY. 293
But it was impossible to issue this proclamation
last year ; at that time the master-spirit of Mr. Lin
coln's administration emphatically assured the di
plomats that the Union will be preserved, were
slavery — to ride in Boston.
The continued disasters in the West can easily
be explained by the fact, that those rotten skele
tons, Crittenden, Davis, and Wickliffe control the
operations of the generals.
Among' the countless lies peddled by McClellan's
worshippers, the most enormous and the most impu
dent is that one by which they attempt to explain,
what in (heir lingo they call, the hostility of the
abolitionists towards McClellan. Concerning1 this
matter, I can speak icith perfect knowledge of
almost alt the, circumstances.
Not one abolitionist of whatever hue, not one
republican whatever, was in any way troubled or
thought about the political convictions of General
McClellan at the time when he was put at the head
of the army. All the abolitionists and republicans,
who then earnestly wished, and now ivish, to have
the rebellion crushed, expected General McClellan
to do it by quick, decisive, soldier-like, military
operations, manoeuvres, and fights. Senators Wade,
Chandler, Trumbull, Sfc., in October, 1861, princi
pally aided McClellan to become independent of
General Scott. When, however, weeks and, months
elapsed without any soldier-like action, manifesta
tion, or enterprise whatever, all those who were in
earnest began to feel uneasy > began to murmur,
25*
294 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
not in reference to any- political opinions , whatever,
held by General McClellan, but solely and exclu
sively on account of his military svpineness. All
those who ardently wished, and ivish, that neither
slaveholders nor slavery be hurt in any way, such
ones early grouped themselves around General
McClellan, believing- to have found in him the
man after their own heart. That cesspool of all
infamies, the New York Herald, became the mouth
piece of all the like hypocrites. They and the Her-
aid iv ere the first to pervert and to misrepresent the
indignation evoked by the do-nothing or nobody-hurt
strategy, and to call it the abolition outcry against
their fetish.
Scarcely will it be believed what disorder, what
helplessness, and what incapacity rule paramount
in the expedition of any current business in the
strictly military part of the War Department. It
is worse than any imaginable red-tape and circum
locution. And all this, being considered a spe
ciality and a technicality, is in the exclusive hands
of the adjutant general, a master spirit among the
West Pointers. Generally, all relating to the thus
celebrated organization of the army is an exclusive
work of the West Point wisdom — is handled by
West Pointers ; and, nevertheless, the general com
prehension of all details in relation to an army,
how it is to be handled, all the military details of
responsibility, of higher discipline, &c., all this is
confusion, and strikes with horror any one either
familiar with such matters or using freely his sound
OCTOBER, 1862.] D I A E Y . 295
sense. A narrow routine which may have l»eefi
innocuous with an army of sixteen thousand with
General Scott and in peace, became highly mis
chievous when the army increased more than fifty
times, and the war raged furiously. All this confu
sion is specially produced by the wiseacres and doc
tors of routine. Undoubtedly it reacts on the army,
and shows of what use for the country is, and was,
that whole old nursery.
Wherever one turns his eyes, every where a deep
line separates the patriotic activity of the people
from the official activity. With the people all is
sacrifice, devotion, grandeur, and purity of purpose,
by great and small, by rich and poor, and with the
poor, if possible, even more than with the rich.
With the highest and higher officials it is either
weakness, or egotism, or coolness, or intrigue, or
ignorance, or helplessness. The exceptions are few,
and have been repeatedly pointed out.
Oct. S. General McClellan's order to the army
concerning the President's proclamation shows up
the man. Not a word about the object in the
proclamation, but rather unveiled insinuations that
the army is dissatisfied with emancipation, and that
it may mutiny. The army ought to feel highly
honored by such insinuations in that lengthy dis
quisition about his (McClellan's) position and the
duties of the army. For the honor of the brave,
armed citizen-patriots it *can be emphatically as
serted that the patriotic volunteers better know
their duties than do those who preach to them.
296 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
Some suspect that Mr. Seward drew the paper for
McClellan, but I am sure this cannot be. It may
have been done by Bennett or some other of the
Herald, or by Barlow. If this order is the result
of Mr. Lincoln's visit \o the camp, and of a trans
action with Mac-Napoleon, then the President has
not thereby increased the dignity of his presidential
character.
Wilkes's Spirit of the Times incommensurably
towers above the New York Press by its dauntless
patriotism ; by its clear, broad, and deep compre
hension of the condition of the country.
Colonel Key's disclosures concerning the McClel-
lan-Halleck programme, not to destroy the rebels
and the rebellion until the next presidential elec
tion, are throttled by the dismissal of the colo
nel. But what he said, if put by the side of the
words of the order to the army, that " the remedy
for political errors, if any are committed, is to
be found only in the action of the people at the
polls," — all this ought to open even the most
obtuse intellects.
Poor (Carlyle fashion) old Greeley hurrahs for
McClellan and for the order No. 163 to the army.
0 for new and young men to swim among new and
young events !
Oct. 11. Will any body in this country have the
patriotic courage to reform the army ? that is, to
dismiss from the service the West Point clique in
Washington and in the army of the Potomac. Such
a proof of strong will cannot be expected from the
OCTOBER, 1862.] DIARY. 297
President ; but perhaps Congress may show it.
Those first and second scholars or graduates from
West Point are all routine engineers ; and who
ever heard of whole armies commanded, moved,
and manoeuvred by engineers ? American inven
tion ; but not to be patented for Europe.
Oct. 11. The rebel raid into Pennsylvania,
under the nose of McClellan. Is there any thing
in the world capable of opening this people's eyes ?
I doubt if at any time, and in the life of any
great or small people, there existed such a gal
axy of civil and military rulers, chiefs, and lead
ers, stripped of nobler manhood, as are the great
men here. The blush of honor never burned their
cheeks! 0, the low politicians! Some persons
doubt Stanton's sincerity in his dealings with indi
viduals. I am not a judge thereof; but were it so,
it can easily be forgiven if he only remains sincere
and true to the cause.
One is amazed and even aghast at the impudence
of the McClellan and West Point cliques. In their
lingo, heroes like Kearney, like Hooker and Heint-
zchnan, all such are superciliously mentioned as
only JigJiting generals. 0, unfighting strategians !
Stuart's brilliant raid was executed the day
of McClellan's bombastic proclamation about his
having cleared Pennsylvania and Maryland of the
the enemy. On the same day McClellan and
other generals straggled about the country, visiting
cities hundreds of miles* distant from the camp.
And such generals complain of straggling ! Make
298 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
the army fight ! inspire with confidence the soldier
— then he will not straggle.
The Evening Post, October 13, demonstrates that
up to this day Mr. Lincoln's administration is " a
grand and brilliant success." Well, de gustibus
non cst dispulandum. Others may rightly think
that the achievements enumerated by the Evening
Post are exclusively due to the people ; that by the
people they were forced upon the administration,
(Stanton and the navy excepted ;) and that the
numerous failures, the waste of human life, of
money, and of time, arc to be logically and directly
traced to the administration. 0, subserviency !
The McClellanites are indignant against the
Pennsylvanians for not having caught Stuart and
his three thousand horse. Bravo ! And what is
the army for? and, above all, what are the so ex
pensive commander and his staff for ?
It is perhaps natural that many from among the
republican leaders attempt to prop up the reputa
tion of Mr. Lincoln's administrative capacity, to
kindle a halo around his name, and to sponge the
waste of blood, of means, and of time, from the
tracks of his Seward-Scott-Blair administration ;
but stern historical justice shall not, and cannot,
do it.
Whatever be the high military and scientific
prowess shown by the first West Point graduates
and scholars, all this in no way compensates for the
summum of perverted notions which are reared
there, and for the uiock, sham, and clownish aris-
OCTOBER, 1862.J DIARY. 299
tocrncy by which a high-toned West Pointer is
easily recognized. Of course many and many
are the exceptions ; many West Point pupils are
animated by the noblest and purest American
.-pint ; but the genuine West Point spirit consists
in sneering and looking down with contempt at the
mother and nurse; that is, at the purely republi
can, purely democratic political institutions, at the
broad political and intellectual freedom to which
those clown-aristocrats owe their rearing, their lit
tle bit of information, and those shoulder-stripes by
which they arc so mightily inflated.
What silly talk, to compare the St. Domingo
insurrection with the eventual results of emancipa
tion in the South ! In St. Domingo the slaves were
obliged to tear their liberty from the slaveholding
planter, and from a government siding with the
oppressor. Here the lawful government gives
liberty to a peaceful laborer, and the planter is an
outlawed traitor. But the genuine pro-slavery
democrat is stupidly obtuse.
Oct. 18. A few days ago the President wrote a
letter to McClellan, with ability anc^ lucidity, ex
posing to view the military urgency of a move
ment on the enemy with an army of one hundred
and forty thousand men, as has now McClellan at
Harper's Ferry. But the letter ends by saying that
all that it contains is not to be considered by
McXapoleon as being an order. Of course Mac
obeys — the last injunction of the letter. Mr. Lin
coln wishes not to hurt the great Napoleon's feel-
300 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
ings ; as for hurting the country, the people, the
cause, this is of — no consequence ! Ah ! to witness
all tliis is to be chained, and to die of thirst within
the reach of the purest water.
Reverend Dr. Unitarian Sensation's broad church,
admirer of the Southern gentleman, and a Jeremy
Diddler.
Oct. 18. The elections in several of the States
evidence the deep imprint upon -the country of
Lincoln-Seward disorganizing, because from the
first day vacillating, undecided, both-ways policy.
The elections reverberate the moral, the political,
and the belligerent condition in which the country is
dragged and thrown by those two master spirits. No
decided principle inspires them and their administra
tion, and no principle leads and has a decided ma
jority in the elections ; neither the democrats nor
the republicans prevail ; neither freedom nor submis
sion is the watchword ; and finally, neither the North
nor the South is decidedly the master on the fields
of battle. All is confusion !
Scarcely one genuine republican was, or is, in the
cabinet ; the republican party is completely on the
wane — and perhaps beyond redemption ; all this is
a logical result, and was easily to be foreseen by any
body, — only not by the wiseacres of the party, not
by the republican papers in New York, as the Times,
the Tribune, and the Evening Post, only not by the
Sumners, Doolittles, and many of the like leaders,
all of whom, when, about a year ago, warned against
such a cataclysm, self-confidently smiled ; but who
OCTOBER, 1862.J DIARY. 301
soon will cry more bitter tears than did the daughters
of Judah over the ruins of Jerusalem.
And now likewise the phrase in McClcllan's order
No. 163, about u the remedy at the polls," the dis
closures made by Colonel Key, receive their fullest,
but ominous and cursed, signification ; and now the
blind can see that it is policy, and not altogether in
capacity, in McClellan to have made a war to pre
serve slavery and the rebels. And thus McClellan
outwitted Mr. Lincoln.
In general, human nature is passionately attracted,
nay, is subdued, by energy, above all by civic intre
pidity. It would have been so easy for Mr. Lincoln
to carry the masses, and to avoid those disasters at
the polls ! But stubbornness is not energy.
From a very reliable source I learn that a few
days after the battle of Antietam, General McClellan,
or at least General or Colonel Marcy, of McClellan's
staff, insinuated to the President that General
McClellan would wish to be relieved from the com
mand of the army, and be assigned to quiet duties
in Washington — very likely to supersede Halleck.
And the President seized not by the hairs the occa
sion to get rid of the nation's nightmare, together
with the pets of the commander of the army of the
Potomac. McClellan acted honestly in making the
above insinuation ; he is now, in part at least, irre
sponsible for any future disaster and blood.
Oct. 20. I have strong indications that European
powers, as England and France, are very sanguine to
mediate, but would do it only if, and when, asked by
26
302 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
our government. Those two governments, or some
other half-friendly, may, semiofficially, insinuate to
Mr. Seward to make such a demand. A few months
ago, already Mr. Dayton wrote from Paris something
about such a step. Mr. Seward is desperate, down
cast, and may believe he can serve his country by
committing the cabinet to some such combination.
I must warn Stanton and others.
In the Express and in the World the New York
Herald found its masters in ignominy.
More or less mean, contemptible ambition among
the helmsmen, but patriotism, patriotic ambition
are below zero — here in Washington. For the sake
and honor of human nature, I pray to destiny
Stanton may not fail, and still count among the
Wadsworths, the Wades, and the like pure patriots.
The democratic elections and majorities united to
Mr. Seward may enforce a compromise, and God
knows if Mr. Lincoln will oppose it to the last.
Then the only seeming salvation of the north will
be the indomitable decision of the rebels not to ac
cept any terms except a full recognition.
Oct. 22. The incapacity of the military wise
acres borders on idiotism, if not on something
worse. To do nothing McClellan absorbs every
man, and keeps one hundred and forty thousand
men on the Maryland side of- the Potomac. Sigel has
only a small command of twelve thousand men, in a
position where, with one quarter of what is useless
under McClellan, with his skill, his activity, and the
truly patriotic devotion of his troops, of his officers,
OCTOBER, 1862.] DIARY. 303
and of the commanders under him, Sigel would
force the rebels to retreat from Winchester, and
otherwise damage them far more than will or can do
such McClellans, Hallecks., and all this c e.
One of the greatest misfortunes for the American
people is to have considered as statesmen the rhe
tors, the petty politicians, and the speech-makers.
Now, those rhetors, petty politicians, and speech-
makers are at the helm, arc in the Senate, and —
ruin the country.
The optimists and the subservients still console
themselves and confuse the people by asserting that
Mr. Lincoln will yet come out as a man and a
statesman. Previous to such a happy change the
country's honor and the country's political and ma
terial vitality will run out.
More than a year ago Mr. Seward said to the
Prince Salm and to me, that this war ought to be
fought out by foreigners ; that the Americans fought
the revolutionary war, but now they are devoted to
peaceful pursuits ; and that it is the duty of Euro
peans to save this refuge from the thraldoms in the
old world.
Now, I see that Mr. Seward was right, although
in a sense different from that in which he uttered
the above sentence.
The Irish excepted, all the other foreign-born
Americans, but preeminently the Germans, are
more in communion with the lofty, pure, and humane
element in the thus called American principle, are
therefore more in communion with the creed of the
304 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
immense majority of Americans, than are they, the
present dabblers in politics, the would-be leaders,
(civil and military,) the would-be statesmen, all of
whom are eaten up by the admixture into what is
vital and perennial in the signification of America,
of all that in itself is local, muddy, petty, acci
dental, and transient.
Oct. 23. The recent publication of General
Scott's letter, and of a writing to President Bu
chanan, confirms my opinion that " the highest
military authority in the land " faltered after March
4, 1861, and inaugurated that defensive warfare
wherein we stick on the Potomac until this day.
Pseudo-liberal right-honorable Gladstone asserts
that Jeff. Davis " has made the South a nation ; "
then Abraham Lincoln, with W. H. Seward and
G. B. McClellan, have destroyed a noble and gen
erous nation.
England may now recognize the South, France
may join in it, but other great European powers, as
Eussia, Spain, Prussia, Austria, will not follow in
such a wake. The recognition will not materially
improve the condition of the rebels, nor raise the
blockade. But as soon as recognized, Jeff. D. may
ask for a mediation, which the people — if not Mr.
Seward — will spurn. An armed mediation remains
to be applied, wherein, likewise, the other Euro
pean powers will not concur. An armed mediation
between the two principles will be the swmmum of
infamy to which English aristocracy and English
mercantilism can degrade itself ; if Louis Napoleon
OCTOBER, 1862.] DIARY. 305
joins therein, then his crown is not worth two years
lease, provided the Orleans have
If we should succumb under the united efforts of
imbecility, of pro-slavery treason, of Anglo-Franco-
European and of American perjury, then
Ultima ccclcstis terrain Astraea reliquit.
Oct. 25. Only two or three days ago, in a con
versation with a diplomat, Mr. Seward asserted that
both the extreme parties will be mastered — that
is, the secessionists and the abolitionists. So Mr.
Seward confesses the credo and the gospel of the
New York Herald, the World, the Journal of Com
merce, the National Intelligencer, and other similar
organs of secession.
Notwithstanding the numerous complications nat
urally generated by the vicinity of Cuba to Seces-
sia, the Spanish government, Count Serrano, the
captain-general of Cuba, and Tassara, the Spanish
minister here, all have maintained the most loyal
relations towards the Federal government. It were
to be very much regretted if a drunkard or a brute,
as in the affair of the Montgomery, should disturb
such relations.
Oct. 26. McClellan-Blair-Seward tactics are
crowned with splendid success. By his simplicity
Mr. Lincoln aided therein as much as he could.
The bad season is in ; any successful campaign
impossible. The rebels will be safe, and Gladstone
justified.
26*
306 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
It is so difficult to find out the truth concerning
Fremont's campaign against Jackson, that some
generalship may, after all, be credited to him. At
any rate Fremont is a better general than McClel-
lan and the pets in command under him, and Fre
mont is with his heart and soul in the cause, of
which the McClellanites cannot be accused, all of
them, their fetish included, having no heart and no
soul.
Old Europe, and, above all, official Europe, and
even 'the Gladstones, must be vindicated. Official
Europe generally appreciates nations by their lead
ers. Europe demands from such leaders actions
and proofs of statesmanship, of high capacity, if not
of heroism. The attempt to astonish Europe by
speeches, by oratory, and, still worse, by second-rate
legal arguments, by what is called papers here, and
in Europe diplomatic circulars and despatches, is
the same as the attempt to eclipse bright sunlight
with a burning candle. But our orators, and, above
all, Mr Seward, flooded the European and the Eng
lish statesmen with their, at the best, indifferent
productions. Official Europe was favored with a
shower of three various editions of papers relating'
to foreign relations in 1862, issued by the State
Department, together with the Sanfords, the Weeds,
the Hugheses, et hoc genus omne. Undoubtedly,
the traitor Mason shows in England more of fire
than does the cold, stiff, prickly, and dignified son
and grandson of Presidents ; and then the average
of our press ! 0, Jemima !
OCTOBER, 1862.] DIARY. 307
Iii his circular, September 22, to our agents in
Europe, Mr. Seward belies not himself. The eman
cipation is rather coldly announced, and it is visible
that neither Mr. Seward's heart nor soul is in it.
The President has now the most reliable informa
tion that when Corinth was invested by Halleck,
the rebel troops were wholly demoralized, and the
enemy was astonished not to be attacked, as very
little resistance would have been made. So much
for General Scott's gift in Halleck.
The almost daily occurrences here long ago
would have exasperated the hot-headed and
warm-hearted nations in Europe, and treason
would have become their watchword. 0 Ameri
can people ! thou art warm-hearted, but of unparal-
lelled endurance !
No European nation, not even the Turks, would
patiently bear such a condition of affairs. Every
where the sovereign would have been forced to
change, or to modify, the personnel of his ministers
and advisers ; and Mr. Lincoln is in the hands of
Messrs. Seward and Blair, both worse even than
McClellan, and — cannot shake them off.
Now, for the first time in my life, I realize why,
during the last stages of the dissolution of the
Roman empire, honest men escaped into monaster
ies, or why, at certain epochs of the great French
revolution, the best men went to the army.
Ah ! to witness here the meanest egotism, imbe
cility, and intrigue, coolly, one by one, destroy the
hor.or and the future of this noble people. Curse
308 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
upon my old age ! above all, curse upon my obes
ity ! Curse upon my poverty ! What a cesspool !
what a mire ! Only legal slaughterers all around !
0, could I go td a camp ! but, of course, not to one
under McClellan. Sigel's camp. Sigel's men are
not soulless ; they fight for an idea, without an eye
to the White House.
The rhetors, the stump-speakers, the politicians,
and the intriguers hold the power, and — hu
manity and history shudder at the results.
Oct. 29. McClellan, with his wonted intrepidity
and rapidity, crossed the Potomac from all direc
tions, pushes on Winchester, and — will find there
wherefrom every animal willingly discharges itself.
A foreign diplomat, one of the most eminent in
the whole corps, said yesterday, " No living being
so ardently prays for rain as does McClellan ; rain,
will prevent fighting, marching, &c." Such is the
estimation of our hero.
Fevers decimated many regiments at Harper's
Ferry. If McClellan would have marched only five
miles a day, fighting even such battles without
any generalship, as he did at Antietam, the army
would be healthier, and by this time would be in
Richmond.
The decision of the court of inquiry between a
patriot and the incarnation of West Point McClel-
fclanism, between Martindale and that Fitz-John
Porter, ought to open the eyes of any one, but —
not those of Mr. Lincoln.
Only two days ago Mr. Lincoln declared, that the
OCTOBER, 1862.] DIARY. 309
reason why McClellan and his pets are not removed
is, not any confidence in McClellan's capacity, but
to preserve the political balance between the repub
lican and the democratic parties.
If there exist such spiritual creations as provi
dence, genii, or angels watching over the destinies of
nations, then, at the sight of Lincoln-Se ward-Blair
doings, providence, angels, genii avert their faces
in despair.
Oct. 30. New regiments coming in. It cuts
into the deepest of the heart to see such noble and
devoted fellows going to be again wantonly slaugh
tered by the combined military and civic ineffi
ciency of McClellan-Lincoln-Seward, and, above all,
by their utter heartlessness.
When the rebels invaded Maryland, the fight
ing generals, as Heintzelman, advised to mass the
troops between the rebels and the Potomac, cut
them from their bases and communications, push
them towards the North without a possibility of
escape, instead of throwing them back on the
Potomac. Harper's Ferry would have been saved.
Every progress made by the rebels in a Northern
direction would have assured their ruin ; soon their
ammunition would have been exhausted, and sur
render was inevitable. But this bold plan of a
fighting general could not be 'comprehended by
pets and pretorians. Since, daily and daily occa-.,
sions occur to destroy the rebels ; but that is not
the game. Instead of cutting the rebels from Gor-
donsville and Richmond, which could have been
310 DIARY. [OCTOBER, 1862.
done any time during the last five weeks if Heint-
zelman and Sigel were not so thoroughly weakened
by an ignorant, or worse, distribution of troops,
McClellan with all his might pushes the rebels back
to Richmond, back on their bases and their re
sources. O, poor country !
Even I feel humiliated to continually ascertain, by
various direct and indirect sources from Europe, in
what little estimation — if not worse — is held our
administration by the principal statesmen and gov
ernments of the old world.
NOVEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 311
NOVEMBER, 1862.
Empty rhetoric — The future dark and terrible — "Wadsworth defeated —
The official bunglers blast every thing they touch — Great and holy
day ! McClellan gone overboard ! — The planters — Burnside — McClel-
lan nominated for President — Awful events approaching — Dictator
ship dawns on the horizon — The catastrophe.
0 GOD, 0 God ! to witness how, by the hands
of Lincoln-Seward-McClellan, this noblest human
structure is crumbled — and, perhaps, soon
Pulverc vix tactac poterunt monstrare ruinse.
May God preserve this people — those noble pa
triots, of which Wadsworth, Wade, Potter of Wis
consin, Stanton, Governor Andrew, and many others
are the types, when the country will be ruined and
rended by the firm, Lincoln-Seward-McClellan, to
realize the pang, —
Xcssun maggior' dolor' che ricordarsi dell tempo felice
Nella miser ia.
0, 1 know what it is !
Mr. Seward's letter, October 28, to Messrs. Con-
nover and Palmer, is a display of that empty rheto
ric whose dust he is wont to throw into the eyes
of the good-natured masses. His plea for united
action — of course with him — is the most bitter
irony on himself. Mr. Seward's policy and action
312 DIARY. [NPVEMBER, 1862.
are at the helm, and he piloted " our noble ship of
state" on worse breakers than those " of eighteen
months ago."
Mr. Seward's letter is dumb on the object of the
Cooper meeting. Of course, Mr. Seward would
rather swallow a viper than applaud the abolition
of slavery.
Nov. 5. Lincoln-Seward politically slaughtered
the republican party, and with it the country's
honor. The future looks dark and terrible. I
shudder. Dishonor on all sides. Lincoln will not
understand to use the lease of power left to him —
or to fall as a man. But to be candid, most of the
thus called leaders prepared this defeat, and most
of them at the last moment may lack decision and
dignity. How repeatedly I warned the Sumners,
Wilsons, and other wiseacres, that such will be the
end, that the people at large will become exasper
ated by Lincoln's administration !
The issue brought before the people was all but
dignified. It would have been better to make a
straightforward issue against the incapacity and the
democratic ill-will of McClellan, than to dodge the
question, and force honest and noble men to speak
against their convictions. The issue, as made, was
concocted by journalists, by politicians; but not
by statesmen, not by genuine great leaders.
Seward triumphs. His insincerity preeminently
contributed to defeat Wadsworth. Mephisto-like,
he rejoices in thus having humbled the pure and
radical patriots.
NOVEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 313
At any rate, I shall try to expose Seward. Arrive
que pourra. But for him the sacred cause would
have been victorious, and now — horror! horror!
The pro-Romanist clergy is more furiously and
savagely pro-slavery than are the Rhetts, the Yan-
ceys, in the South ; the poor Africo-Americans are,
if not the truest Christians in this country, at any
rate their Christianity is sublime when compared
with the pro-Romanism.
0, for civic intrepidity, or all is lost ! High-minded,
intrepid, self-forgetful civism and abnegation alone
can avert the catastrophe. Such is the mass of the
people — but its leaders-!
Nov. 8. Hooker has the military instinct in him
which lights the fire, and the inspiration of the god of
battles ; as Halleck has nothing of the one and of the
other, and as Mr Lincoln is — Mr. Lincoln, so
Hooker is not to be put in command of the army.
Lincoln and Halleck will find out their man. Similis
simili gaudet, or, przywitala sie dupa z wiechciem.
Nov. 9. The official bunglers have blasted every
thing they touched : the people's virgin enthusiasm
and unparalleled devotion ; they have endangered
the country's safety. It is to hope for a miracle to
expect any thing for the better at the hands of the
bunglers. Will the shallow rhetors, will the would-
be leaders in the Congress, be as subservient to the
bunglers as they have been up to this hour ?
Nov. 9. Great and holy day ! McClellan gone
overboard ! Better late than never. But this be
lated act of justice to the country cannot atone for
27
814 DIARY. [NOVEMBER, 1862.
all the deadly disasters, will not remove the fearful
responsibility from Lincoln-Seward-Blair, for hav
ing so long sustained this horrible vampire. Now
is Seward's turn to jump.
It must be acknowledged, in justice to the average
of the better class of planters, that the superficial,
sociable intercourse with them is more easy, and
what is commonly considered more European, than
is similar intercourse with any corresponding class
in the North. Therein consists the whole attraction
exercised by the Southerners on Europeans visiting
America — the diplomats included. I, for one, am
always uneasy, anxious, as if touching hot iron,
when in intercourse here with men with whom I am
very intimate, (on the outside,) and who now are in
power. I never felt so out of the track when —
once — in intercourse with sovereigns, and with emi
nent men in Europe.
Nov. 11. General Burnside succeeds to McClel-
lan — gives a military ovation to his predecessor.
In his order of the day, Burnside pays homage to
McClellan, and thus implicitly condemns the gov
ernment. Burnside permits McClellan to issue
such a parting word as must shake the army and
the country.
Nov. 12. The democrats nominate McClellan for
the next presidency. Thus Mr. Lincoln's helpless
ness, Seward's hatred of the republican creed, the
treason, the imbecility, the intrigues of various oth
ers, the lack of civic energy in the New York repub
lican press and in the republican politicians, except
NOVEMBER, 1862.] DIARY. 315
some repeatedly mentioned in this Diary, — all
this combined has built up a pedestal for such a
McClellan !
Strange and awful events may occur even before
the end of Mr. Lincoln's administration. The dem
ocratic leaders are perverse, unprincipled, reckless,
daring beyond conception ; success is their creed, and
no conscience, no honor restrain them ; and in the
management of the public opinion and of their party
the democrats have evidenced a skill far above that
of the republican leaders ; further, the democrats
evoke the vilest, the most brutish passions dormant
in the masses ; the democrats are supported by all
that is brutal, savage, ignorant, and sordid ; and, to
crown and strengthen all, the democrats, united to
Romanist priesthood, rule over the Irishry.
And thus the relentless hatred with which the
democrats persecute any elevated, noble, humane
aspiration ; the helplessness, the incapacity of the
official and unofficial leaders of the republican party :
both these agencies combined may deal such a blow
to the pure and humane republican creed that it
may not recover therefrom during the next twenty-
five years.
To sum up, —
Dictatorship with Me Cleltan seems to dawn upon
the horizon ; the smallest disaster — Burnside, ah !
— will precipitate the catastrophe. I pray to God
(and for the first time) that I may be mistaken.
I
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