The people at large cannot realize the really awful position of patriotic members of Congress, and above all, of such senators as Wade, Grimes, Fessenden, Wilson, Morrill, Chandler andothers, or the almost similar position of Stanton, in his contact with the double-dealings or the obstinacy of Lincoln.
Dec. 31.—To-morrow few, if any, shall miss the occasion to shake hands with the official butchers, with men dripping with the gore of their brethren. Oh, Cains! oh, fratricides!
Dec. 31.—Midnight.—Disappear! oh year of disgraces, year of slaughters and of sacrifices.
Tschto den griadoustchi nam gotowit?(Puschkine.)
Ring out the false, ring in the true,Ring out the grief that saps the mind,* * ** * *Ring inREDRESSfor all mankind!
Proclamation — Parade — Halleck — Diplomats — Herodians — Inspired Men — War Powers — Rosecrans — Butler — Seward — Doctores Constitutionis — Hogarth — Rhetors — European Enemies — Second Sight — Senator Wright the Patriot — Populus Romanus — Future Historian — English People — Gen. Mitchell — Hooker in Command — Staffs — Arming Africo-Americans — Thurlow Weed, &c.
Jan. 1.—The morning papers. No proclamation! Has Lincoln played false to humanity?
The proclamation will appear. All right so far! Hallelujah! How the friends of darkness, how the demons must wince and tremble.
There! Red-tape commander-in-chief, field marshal (who never saw a field of battle!) parades at the head of victorious generals, of intelligent staffs, of active pontoon providers, and of really and highly qualified quartermasters general. To the White House! They will congratulate Mr. Lincoln. Upon what? Upon Fredericksburgh and other massacres; but especially they will congratulate Mr. Lincolnupon the fact of his being surrounded by such a bright galaxy of know-nothings and do-nothings!
Death-knell to slavery and to the slaveocracy. The foulest relic of the past will at length be destroyed. The new era has a glorious dawn; it rises in the glories of sacrifices made by a generous and inspired people. Yes! The new era rises above darkness, selfishness, and imbecility. The shades of the slaughtered are now at length propitiated; their slaughter is at least in part atoned for; and outraged humanity is, at least in part, avenged! Let rebels and conservatives remain hardened in crime; a just and condign vengeance shall overtake them.
Nunc pede liberoPulsanda tellus.
Jan. 2.—Shallow and brainless diplomats sneer at the proclamation. So did the Herodians sneer at the star of Bethlehem; and where now are the Herodians? Oh! shallow and heartless diplomats, your days are numbered, too!
Jan. 2.—A man inspired by conviction and glowing with a fervent faith, thoroughly knows what he is about. Strong in his faith, and by his faith, he clearly sees his way, and steadily walks in it, while others grope hither and thither amidst shadows and darkness and bewildering doubts! Such a manboldly takes the initiative, marches onward, and is as a beacon-light to a nation, to a people; often, sometimes, even for all humanity. A man who has a profound faith in his convictions has coruscations, fierce flashes of that second-sight for the signs of the times. The mere trimming and selfish politician is ever ready to swim with the stream which he had neither strength nor skill to breast; he never ventures to take the initiative. In issuing the proclamation, Mr. Lincoln gives legal sanction, form, and record to what the storm of events and the loud cry of the best of the people have long demanded and now inexorably dictate.
History will pitilessly tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; and small credit will history give to Lincoln beyond that of being the legal recorder of a righteous deed, and not even that credit will be given to the countersigner, Seward.
Mr. Seward countersigned both proclamations of freedom. Europe is filled with his despatches, written at first plainly for, then lukewarmly tolerating, and, at length, flatly against, slavery. European statesmen have thus the exact measure of Mr. Seward's political character. They know that to the very last he defended slavery, and then countersigned the decree of its destruction! In Europe,self-respecting statesmen resign rather than countersign a measure which they disapprove or have strongly opposed.
Jan. 3.—Emancipation under war powers. A mistake by a contradiction. Spoke of it before. And nevertheless: under war powers alone, emancipation is palatable to a great many, nay, almost to millions of small, narrow intellects, dried up by the formulas, and who in the Constitution see only the latter, and not the expanding, all-embracing principle and spirit. O, Rabbis! O, Talmudists!
Lincoln is very unhappy in his phraseology. He invites the sympathies of humanity on a measure decided by him to favor the war. It is a contradiction; humanity and war are antipodic.
The papers in the confidence of Seward, such as theIntelligencer(without intelligence,) the border-state friends of Lincoln, and all that is muddy and rotten, even the supposed to be well-informed diplomats unanimously assert that Mr. Lincoln has no confidence in his proclamation. As for Seward—this Lincoln's evil genius—no doubt exists concerning his contempt for the proclamation. Ask the diplomats. But these highest pilots in this administration are bound—as by a terrible oath—to violate all the laws of psychology, of human nature, ofsense, of logic and of honor, to make the people bleed and suffer in its honor.
Well, pompous Chase; how do you feel for having sided with Seward?
Gen. Butler's farewell proclamation to New Orleans rings the purest and most patriotic harmony. Compare Butler's with Lincoln's writings. All the hearts in the country resounded with Butler; and because he acted as he did, Lincoln-Seward-Blair-Halleck's policy shelved Butler.
Jan. 3.—By the united efforts of Lincoln-Seward-Blair, of theHerald, and of that cesspool of infamies, theWorld, of McClellan, and of his tail, by the stupifying influence of Halleck, the Potomac army, notwithstanding its matchless heroism, and equipped as well as any army in Europe; up to this day the Potomac army serves to—establish—the military superiority of the rebels, to morally strengthen, nay, even to nurse the rebellion. Lincoln-Halleck dare not entrust the army into the hands of a true soldier,—Stanton is outvoted. The next commander inherits all the faults generated by Lincoln, McClellan, Halleck, Burnside, and it would otherwise tax a Napoleon's brains to reorganize the army but for the patriotic spirit of the rank and file and most of the officers.
Jan. 3.—What a pity that petty, quibbling constitutionalismalone is understood by Lincoln and by his followers. To emancipate in virtue of a war power is scarcely to perform half the work, and is a full logical incongruity. Like all kind of war power, that of the president has for its geographical limits the pickets of his army—has no executive authority beyond, besides being obligatory only as long as bayonets back it. Such a power cannot change social and municipal conditions, laws or relations (see Vol. I.)
The civil power of the president penetrates beyond the pickets, and in virtue of that civil power, and of the sacred duty to save the fatherland, the President of the United States, and not the Commander-in-Chief, can say to the slaves: "Arise, you are free, you have no servitude, no duties towards a rebel and traitor to the Union. I, the president, dissolve your bonds in the name of the American people."
Jan. 4.—How the tempest of events changes or modifies principles. The South rebelled in the name of State rights, and now Jeff Davis absorbs all States and all parliamentary rights for the sake ofsalus populior rather ofsalusof slavocracy. Jeff Davis nominates officers in the regiments whatever be the opposition of the respective Governors. In the North, the Governors, all of them, (Seymour?)true patriots, insist upon power and the right to organize new regiments, and resist the centralization by the United States Government. Perhaps—as the satraps and martinets assert—thereby the organisation of the army is thrown on a false track. Whether so or not, one thing is certain, but for the States and Governors, Lincoln, Scott, Seward, McClellan, Halleck, or the Union, would be nowhere.
Jan. 4.—They fight battles in the West. Generals, to be victorious, must be in spiritual and in electric communion with the heroic soldiers. So it was at Murfreesborough. Rosecrans, at the head of his cavalry or body guard, dashes in the thickest, and turns the dame fortune, who smiles on heroes, but never smiled on McClellan nor on his tail. Rosecrans sticks not to regulations, and keeps not a few miles in the rear. Franklin, at Fredericksburgh mounted not even his horse but stood in front of his tent. Similar to Rosecrans here was Kearney, the bravest of the brave, more of a captain than any of the West-Point high-nosed nurslings; so is Heintzelman, Hooker, Reno, Sigel and many, many others, whom McClellanism, Halleckism, Lincolnism kept or keeps down.
I positively learned that in the last days of the summer of 1862, a list without heading circulated in the Potomac army, and all who signed it boundthemselves to obey only McClellan. The McClellan clique originated this conspiracy, which extended throughout all the grades.
What confusion prevails about the rights of existence of slavery. How they discuss it. How they pettifog. Why not establish the rights of existence of syphilis, ofplicain the human body. O, casuists. O,Intelligencers. O,Worlds!
Well, to me, slavery seems to legally (cursed legality) exist in virtue of the special State rights, and not in virtue of the Constitution. But for the State rights, the Africo-American is a man and citizen of the United States—and this under the Constitution which is paramount to State rights. The rebellion annihilates the State rights, and all special constitutions guaranteed by the Union, and at the same time annihilates the relation of the Africo-American to the specific States or constitutions. It restores to him the rights of man guaranteed to him as man by the Union and the Constitution of the United States. The Africo-American recovers his rights, lost and annihilated by specific State rights and municipal, local laws. The president had to issue his proclamation as guardian and executor of the Constitution, and then Africo-Americans recovered their citizenship on firmer and broader grounds than under, or by the war power. Calhoun,the father of the rebellion—as Milton's Satan—and all the rebels now curse or cursed the preamble of the Constitution as Satan cursed the light. I suppose Calhoun's and the rebels' reasons are similar to me.Inde iræ.
The commanders in the West bear evidence of the devotion, the heroism and the endurance of the Africo-Americans, sacrificing their lives without hope; martyrs by the rebels as well as by Hallecks and the like.
I met a farmer from Maine. He was rather old and poor. Had two sons—lost them both—they were all his hope. He spoke simply of it, but to break one's heart.He grudged not, (his own words,) his hopes and blood for the cause, and considered it good luck to have recovered the body of one of his boys, and brought it back home to the "old woman," (wife, mother.) I shook hands with him. I ought to have kissed him. Unknown, unnamed hero-patriot! and similar are hundreds of thousands, and such is the true people. And so sacrilegiously dealt with by insane helplessness.
Jan. 5.—TheDoctors Constitutionisbreak their formula brains concerning the constitutionality of the proclamation, and foretell endless complications. If so, if complications arise, the reasons thereof are moral, logical and practical. 1st.—Theemancipation was neither conceived nor executed in love; but it was for Lincoln as Vulcan for Jupiter. The proclamation is generated neither by Lincoln's brains, heart or soul, and what is born in such a way is always monstrous. 2d.—Legally and logically, the proclamation has the smallest and the most narrow basis that could have been selected. When one has the free choice between two bases, it is more logical to select the broader one. The written Constitution had neither slavery nor emancipation in view, but it is in the preamble, and the emancipation ought to be deduced from the preamble. Many other reasons can be enumerated pregnant with complications and above all when Lincoln-Seward are theaccoucheurs. My hope and confidence is in the logic of events always stronger than man's helplessness and imbecility.
Jan. 5.—European rulers, wiseacres, meddlers, humbugs, traitors, demons, diplomats, assert that they must interfere here because European interests suffer by the war. Indeed! You have the whole old continent and Australia to boot, and about nine hundreds millions of population; can you not organise yourself so as not to depend from us? And if by your misrules, etc., our interests were to suffer, you would find very strange any complaint made on our part. Keep aloof with yourgood wishes, and with your advices, and with your interference. You may burn your noses, and even lose your little scalps. You robbers, murderers, hypocrites, surrounded by your liveried lackeys, you presumptuous, arrogant curses of the human race, stand off, and let these people whose worst criminal is a saint when compared to a Decembriseur—let this people work out its destinies, be it for good or for evil.
Jan. 5.—Early in December, 1860, therefore soon after Mr. Lincoln's election, a shrewd and clear-sighted politician, Gen. Walsh, from New York, visited Springfield, and made his bow to the rising sun. On his return from the Illinois Medira, I asked the general what was his opinion concerning the new President. "Well, sir," was the general's answer, "in parting, I advised Mr. Lincoln to get a very eminent man for his private secretary."—Sapienti sat.
Jan. 6.—Oh for a voice of thousand storms to render justice to the patriots in Congress, to make the masses of the people know and appreciate them, and to show up the littleness and the ignorance of the pillars of the Republican press. Never and in no country has the so-called good press shown itself so below the great emergencies of the day as are the old hacks semperliving in the press.
Jan. 7.—The great military qualities shown by Gen. Rosecrans, thrilled with joy all the best men in the Potomac Army. The war horse Hooker is the loudest to admire Rosecrans. Happy the Western heroes to be beyond the immediate influence of Washington—of the White House—and above all, of such as Halleck!
Rosecrans has revealed all the higher qualities of a captain; coolness, resolution, stubbornness and inspiration. His army began to break,—he ordered the attack on the whole line, and thus transformed defeat into victory. Not of McClellan's school, is Rosecrans.
Jan. 7.—Senator Sumner who, during the ministerial crisis, ought to have exposed to the country the mischievous direction given by Mr. Seward to our foreign relations, and who ought to have done it nobly, boldly, authoritatively, patriotically, and from his Senatorial chair, Senator Sumner's preferred to keep stoically quiet, notwithstanding that his personal friends and the country expected it from him. Yet next to Chase, Senator Sumner, more than any body, attacks Seward in private conversation! I read in the papers that Senator Sumner's influence on Mr. Lincoln is considerable (nevertheless Seward remained as the greatest curse to the country,) and that he, Sumner, is apower behindthe throne. Has Sumner insinuated this himself to some newspaper reporter inextremisfor news?Power behind the throne, what a tableau: Sumner and Lincoln! O, Hogarth, O, Callot! Oh, for your crayon! and now—of course—the country is safe, having suchPower behind the throne.
Mr. Lincoln's good intentionsI hear talked about right and left. Oh, for one sensible, good, energetic action, and all his intentions may go where the French proverb puts them.
Jan. 7.—The city crowded with Major Generals and Brigadier-Generals not in activity. When Mr. Lincoln is cornered, then he makes a Brigadier or a Major General, according to circumstances and in obedience to political or to backstairs influence. From the beginning of the war, no sound notions directed the nominations, either under Cameron, Scott, or McClellan, or now; at the beginning of the war they had Generals without troops, then troops without Generals, and now they have Generals who have not commanded, or cannot command, troops. If, during the war in Poland in 1831, Warsaw, the Capital, had been overrun in such a way by do-nothing Generals, the chambermaids in the city would have taken the affair into their fair hands, and armed with certain night effluvia made short work with the military drones.
Jan. 8.—A poor negro woman with her child was refused entrance into the cars. It snowed and stormed, and she was allowed to shiver on the platform. A so-called abolitionist Congress and President gave the charter to the constructors of the city railroad and the members of Congress have free tickets, and the Africo-American is treated as a dog. Human honesty and justice!
Jan. 8.—Horse contracts the word. Never in my life saw I the horse so maltreated and the cavalry so poorly, badly, brainlessly organised, drilled and used. Some few exceptions change not the truth of my assertions, and McClellan is considered a great organiser. They ruin more horses here in this war than did Napoleon I. in Russia, (I speak not of the cold which killed thousands at once.)
How ignorant and conceited! Halleck solicits Rarey, the horse-tamer, for instructions. O, Halleck, you are unique! Officers who have served in armies with large, good, well-organised and well-drilled cavalry—such officers will teach you more than Rarey. But such officers are from Europe, and it would be a shame for a West-Point incarnation of ignorance and conceit to learn anything from an officer of European experience. Bayard, however, thought not so. Justice to his name.
The rebels are not so conceited as the simon pureWest-Pointers. Above all the rebels wish success, and have no objections to learn; they imported good European cavalry officers, and have now under Stuart (his chief of staff is a Prussian officer) a cavalry which has made a mark in this war.
Jan. 8.—O rhetors! O, rhetors! malediction upon you and upon the politicians! You have no heart, no sensibilities. Not one, not one has yet uttered a single word for the fallen, for the suffering, the dying and nameless heroes of our armies. It seems, O rhetors and politicians! that the people ought to bleed that you may prosper. Corpses are needed for your stepping stones! The fallen are not mentioned now in Congress, as you never mentioned them in your poor stump speeches. O, you whitened sepulchres!
O rhetors and politicians! O, powers on, before, and "behind the throne!" In your selfish, heartless conceit, you imagine that the Emancipation is and will be your work, and will be credited to you. Oh yes, but by old women.
The people's blood, the fallen heroes, tore the divine work of emancipation, from the hands of jealously watching demons. To the shadows of the fallen the glory, and not to your round, polished or unpolished phrases. Not the pen with which the proclamation was written is a trophy and a relic, butthe blood steaming to heaven, the corpses of the fallen, corpses mouldering scattered on all the fields of the Union.
Jan. 8.—As a rapid spring tide, so higher and higher, and with all parties—even, with the decided Copperheads—rises the haughty contempt toward the crowned, the official, the aristocratic, and the flatfooted (livery stable) part of Europe. Good and just! Marshy, rotten rulers and aristocrats who scarcely can keep your various shaky and undermined seats, you and your lackeys, you take on airs of advisors, of guardians, of initiators of civilization! Forsooth! I except Russia. In Russia the sovereign, his ministers and nine-tenths of the aristocracy are inuni sonowith the whole nation; and all are against slavery, against the rebels, against traitors. The Russian government and the Russian nation often are misrepresented by their official or diplomatic agents.
Any well organized American village in the free States contains more genuine, moral and intellectual civilization than prevails among European higher circles, those gilded pasteboards. This is all that you, you conceited advisors, represent in that splendid, all-embracing edifice of civilization! At the best you are ornaments, or—with Wilhelm von Humboldt—you are culture, but notthe higher, man-inspiring civilization. A John S. Mill, a Godwin Smith, and those many outside of thewould-be-somethingstrata in England, in France, almost the whole Germany, those are the representatives of the genuine civilized Europe.
The freemen of the North, on whom you European exquisites look superciliously down with your albino eyes, the freemen of the North, bleeding in this deadly struggle, are the confessors for the general civilization, and stand on the level with any martyrs, with any progressive people on record on history.
Jan. 9.—Quo, quo scelesti ruitis.........
It is maddening to witness for so many months the reckless waste of men, of time, of money, and of material means, and all this squandered by governmental and administrative helplessness and conceit. In the military part, notwithstanding Stanton's devotion and efforts, that Halleck,excrementum Scotti, as by appointment, carries out everything contrary to common sense, to well established and experienced (Halleck and experience, ah!... military practice, and Mr. Lincoln is as perfectly) charmed by it, as is the innocent bird by the snake.
And thus the sacrifices and the blood of the people run out as does the mighty Rhine—they run out in sand. O, Lincoln-Seward's domesticpolicy. O, Lincoln-Halleck's war power! You make one shudder as with a death pang.
January 9.—The worshippers of slavery, that is, the Democrats, of the Seymour's, Wood's, and theWorld'schurch, call the war waged for the defence of human rights, for civilization and for maintaining the genuine rational self-government, they call it an unholy war. In some respects the Copperheads are right. The holy war loses its holiness in the hands of Lincoln, Seward, Halleck, and their disciples and followers, because those leaders violate all the laws of logic and of reason, this holy of holies. At times I would prefer peace than see devoted men so recklessly murdered by such....
A critique of the first volume of the "Diary" asserts that all my statements are made after the events occurred,ex post. To a very respectable General I showed a part of the original manuscript which squared with the printed book. Often I am ashamed to find that the bit of study and experience acquired by me goes so far when compared with many around me, and in action. I foresee, because I have no earthly personal views, no cares, nothing in the world to think of or to aim at, no charms, no ties—only my heart, my ideas, my convictions, and civilization is my worship. Nothing prevents me, day and night, from concentratingwhatever powers and reading I can have in one single focus. This cause, this people, this war, its conduct, are the events amidst which I breathe. Uninterruptedly I turn and return all that is in my mind—that is all. And I am proud to have my heart in harmony with my head.
Almost every event has its undercurrent, and of ten the little undercurrents pre-eminently shape the events themselves. The truth of this axiom is illustrated principally in the recall of the resolute, indefatigable, far and clear-sighted patriot and statesman, General Butler. To jump to a conclusion without much ado, the recall of Butler from New Orleans is due principally, if not even exclusively, to the united efforts—or conspiracy—of Mr. Seward and Mr. Reverdy Johnson. Thirteen months ago Mr. Seward expected, as he still expects for the future, an uprising of a Union Party in the hottest hot-bed of Secessia. That such are the Secretary of State's expectations, I emphatically assert, and as proof, it may be stated that only yesterday, January 9th, Mr. Seward most authoritatively tried to impress upon foreign diplomats the speedy reunion andrestorationof the Union as it was, notwithstanding the Proclamation,still considered by the Secretary of Stateas beinga waste of paper. How far the foreign diplomats believe the like oraculardecisions, is another question; certain it is that they shrug their shoulders.
But to return to Butler and New Orleans. The patriotic activity by which General Butler won, conquered and maintained the rebel city for the Union, was emphatically considered by Mr. Seward, as crushing out every spark of any latent Union feeling among the rebels. Thurlow Weed, then abroad, urged Mr. Seward to find out the said Union feeling, to blow it into almighty fire and to rely exclusively upon it. Here Reverdy Johnson was and is, the principal Union crony of the Secretary of State, and Seaton of theIntelligencer; but above all, since the murder of Massachusetts men at Baltimore in 1861, Reverdy Johnson was the devoted advocate of all rich traitors, as the Winans and others, who were called by him "misled Union men." When Gen. Butler dealt deserved justice to rich traitors in New Orleans, the Washington Unionists surrounding Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward—some of them from New Orleans—urged an investigation. The Secretary of State eagerly seized the occasion to dispatch to the Crescent City Mr. Reverdy Johnson with the principal secret mission to gather together the elements of the scattered Union feeling in Louisiana and in the South, and to make them blaze—in honor of the Secretary of State. It was arich harvest in every way for Reverdy Johnson; he harvested it, and on his return fully convinced the Secretary of State, that the Union could not be saved if Gen. Butler remained in his command in the Department of the Gulf.
This surreptitious undermining of General Butler by the Secretary of State, is one more evidence of how truly patriotic was the effort of the Republican Senators and Congressmen to liberate the President and the country from the all-choking and all-poisoning influence of Mr. Seward, and how cursed must remain forever the conduct of Mr. Chase, who, after having during two years cried against Seward, accusing him almost of treason, when the hour struck, preferred to embarrass the patriots and the President rather that to let Mr. Seward retire and deprive the people of hispatrioticservices. It was moreover expected that, thus warned by the patriots, the President would seize the first occasion to infuse energy into his Cabinet. But there is a Mr. Usher, a docile nonentity, made Secretary of the Interior; of course the Secretary of State will be strengthened thereby.
January 10.—Senator Wright of Indiana, in an ardent and lofty—of course, not rhetorical, speech, hit the nail on the head, when, rendering due homage to Rosecrans, he called him "the first generalwho fights for the people and not for the White House." The greatest praise for the man, and the most saddening picture of our internal sores.
January 10.—As the purepopulus Romanushad an inborn aversion to Kings and diadems, and could not patiently bear their neighborhood, so the genuine American Democrat, one by principles and not by a party name or by a party organization, such a Democrat feels it to be death for his institutions to have slavocracy in his country or in its neighborhood.
Jan. 10.—O how is to be pitied the future historian of this bloody tragedy! Through what a loathsome cesspool of documentary evidence, preserved in the various State Archives, the unhappy historian will have to wade, and wade deep to his chin. Original works of Lincoln, Seward, etc.
It is easy to play a game at chess with a far superior player, then at least one learns something; but impossible to sit at a chess board with a child who throws all into confusion. The national chessboard is very confused in the White House. Cunning is good for, and only succeeds in dealing with, mean and petty facts.
Jan. 10.—Halleck's congratulatory order to Rosecrans and to the Western heroes. How cold and pedantic. How differently, how enthusiasticallyand fiery rang Stanton's words on the capture of forts Henry and Donelson and to Lander's (now dead) troops. Why is Stanton silent? Is it the Constitution, the Statute, is it the incarnate four years formula which seals Stanton's heart and brains? or is Stanton eaten up by the rats in the Cabinet?
January 10.—The messages of the loyal Governors, not copperheads, (as is Seymour of N. Y.) above all, the message of Andrew of Massachusetts, throw a ray of hope and promise over this dark, cold, unpatriotic confusion so eminent here in Washington. This confusion, this groping, double-dealing and helplessness can be only cured by a wonder, or else all will be lost. The wonder is daily perpetrated by the all enduring, all-sacrificing people.
Those criminals who ought to have been shot, or, at the mildest, cashiered for the slaughter at Fredericksburgh, the engineers, mock-Jominis, the sham soldiers: all these Washington engineers of that recent butchery, assert now, that, after all, the possession of Fredericksburgh was immaterial; that Lee would have then selected a better position. All this is thrown to the public to palliate the crime of the Washington military conclave, and to weaken and invalidate Hooker's evidence before the War Committee. It must be admitted that if Hooker—having fifty thousand in hand, and one hundredthousand in his rear, had seized the Fredericksburgh heights, he would not have allowed Lee to so easily select a position and to fortify it. Nay, I suppose, that not only Hooker, but even a Halleck, a Cullum or a Meigs would have prevented Lee from settling in any comfortable position. However, I might be mistaken. Corinth, Corinth, for Halleck. Those great nightcaps here have so original and so new military conceptions, their general comprehension of warfare so widely differs from science, experience, and from common sense, that, holding Fredericksburgh they might have invited Lee to select whatever he wanted as a strong position.
I learn that Halleck is at work to translate some French military book. What an inimitable narrow-minded pedant. If Halleck had brains, he could not have an hour leisure for translation. But in such way he humbugs Mr. Lincoln, who looks on Halleck as the quintessence of military knowledge and genius. A man who can translate a French book must be a genius. Is it not so, Lincoln? And thus Halleck translates a book instead of taking care that the pontoons be sent in time; and Halleck prepared sheets for the press, and our soldiers to be massacred.
Burnside prepares a movement; Franklin, to undermine Burnside, to appear great, or to get holdof the army, denounces Burnside secretly to the President: the President forbids the movement. What a confusion! Mr. Lincoln, either accept Burnside's resignation, which he has repeatedly offered, or kick down the denouncers. Accident made me discover almost next day, the names of the two generals sent by Franklin on this denunciatory errand—John Cochran and Newton. I instantly told all to Stanton, who was almost ignorant of Franklin's surreptitiousness. I also told it to several Senators.
The Army of the Potomac is altogether demoralized—above all, in the higher grades. It could not be otherwise if they were angels. McClellanism was and is propitious to general disorder, and how Mr. Lincoln improves is exemplified above. Independent men, independent Senators and Representatives who approach Mr. Lincoln, find him peevish, irritable, intractable to all patriots.All these are criteria of a lofty mind and character.Weed, Seward, Harris, Blair, and such ones alone, are agreeable in the White House.
So much is spoken of the war powers of the President; I study, and study, and cannot find them as absolute as the Lincolnites construe them. All that I read in the Constitution are the realwar powersin the Congress, and the President is only the executorof those powers. The President must have permission for every thing, almost at every step—and has no right to issue decrees. He has no war powers over those of Congress, and can act very little on his own hook. It seems to me that Congress, misled, confused by casuists, expounders, and by small intellects worshipping routine, that Congress rather abdicated their powers, and that the bunglers around Lincoln, in his name greedily seized the above powers.
Poor Lincoln! As the devil dreads holy water, so Mr. Lincoln dreads to be surrounded with stern, earnest, ardent, patriotic advisers. Such men would not listen to stories!
January 11.—The thus-called metropolitan press is in the hands of old politicians, old hacks—and no new forces or intellects pierce through. It is a phenomenon. In any whatever country in Europe, at every convulsion the press bristles with new, fresh intellects. Here, the old nightcaps have the monopoly. Farther: those respectable fossils reside at a distance from the focus of affairs, are not directly in contact with events and men, and are in no communion with them. The Grand Lamas of the press depend for information upon the correspondents, who catch news and ideas at random, and nourish with them their employers and the public.
January 11.—Senator Sumner has made a motion to give homesteads to the liberated Africo-Americans. That is a better and a nobler action than all his declamations put together.
January 12.—Sentinels in double line surrounding the White House. Odious, ridiculous, unnecessary, and an aspect unwonted in this country—giving the aspect to the White House of an abode of a tyrant, when it is only that of a shifting politician. It is Halleck, who, with the like futilities and absurdities, amuses Lincoln and gets the better of him.
Mr. Lincoln is very depressed at the condition of the Army of the Potomac, and decides—nothing for its reorganization. But for Halleck, Stanton would reorganize and give a new and healthy life to the army. I mean the upper grades, and not the rank and file, who are patriotic and healthy.
After Corinth, Halleck-Buell disorganized the Western, now Halleck is at work to do the same with the Potomac Army. I know that in the presence of a diplomat, Halleck complained that he is paid only five thousand dollars, and earned by far more in California. He had better return to California and to his pettifogging.
Since the beginning of this Administration, Mr. Seward wrote, I am sure, more dispatches thanFrance, England, Prussia, Russia, Austria, Spain, and Italy put together during the Crimean war, and up to this day. Great is ink, and paper is patient!
January 13.—It is more than probable that Mr. Mercier stirred up, or at least heartily supported the mediation scheme. The Frenchmen in New York maintain that Mr. Mercier derives his knowledge of America and his political inspirations from that foul sheet, theCourrier des États Unis. There is some truth in this assertion, as the reasons enumerated to justify mediation can be found in various numbers of that sheet. I am sorry that Mr. Mercier has fallen so low; as for his master, he is a fit associate for theCourrier.
January 13.—Ralph Waldo Emerson, inspired and not silenced by the storm. He alone stands up from among the Athenian school. He alone is undaunted. So would be Longfellow, but for the terrible domestic calamity whose crushing blow no man's heart could resist. I never was a great admirer of Emerson, but now I bow, and burn to him my humble incense.
January 15.—The patriotic, and at times inspired orator—not rhetor—Kelly, from Pennsylvania, told me that all is at sixes and sevens in the Administration, and in the army. I believe it. How couldit be otherwise, with Lincoln, Seward and Halleck at the head?
Mr. Seward did his utmost to defeat the re-election of Judge Potter from Wisconsin, one among the best and noblest patriots in the country. For this object Mr. Seward used the influence of the pro-Catholic Bonzes. Then Mr. Seward wrote a letter denying all this—a letter which not in the least convinced the brave Judge, as I have it from himself.
If all the lies could only be ferreted out with which Seward bamboozles Lincoln, even the God of Lies himself would shudder.
January 15.—The noble and lofty voice of the genuine English people, the voice of the working classes, begins to be heard. The people re-echo the key-note struck by a J. S. Mills, by a Bright, a Cobden, and others of like pure mind and noble heart. The voice of the genuine English people resounds altogether differently from the shrillfalsettowith which turf hunters, rent-roll devourers, lords, lordlings, and all the like shams and whelps try to intimidate the patriotic North, and comfort the traitors, the rebels.
January 16.—But for the truly enlightened and patriotic efforts of the Senators Wade, Lane, (of Kansas) and Trumbull, the debate of yesterday,Thursday, on the appropriation for the West Point Military Academy would have gone to the country, absolutely misleading and stultifying the noble and enlightened people. It was most sorrowful, nay, wholly disgusting to witness how Senators who, until then, had stood firmly against small influences and narrow prejudices, blended together in an unholy alliance to sustain the accursed clique of West Point engineers. Much allowance is to be made for the allied Senators' ignorance of the matter, and for the natural wish to appear wise. The country, the people, ought to treasure the names of the ten patriotic Senators whose voices protested against further sustaining that cursed nursery of arrogance, of pro-slavery, or of something worse.
Whatever might have been the efforts of the Senatorial patrons and the allies of the engineers, the following facts remained for ever unalterable: 1st. That the spirit of close educational corporation which have exclusive monopoly and patronage, is perfectly similar to the spirit which prevailed and still prevails in monasteries, and permeates the pupils during their whole after life; 2d. That the prevailing spirit in West Point was and is rather monarchical and altogether Pro-Slavery; 3d, that of course some noble exceptions are to be found and made,—but they are exceptions; 4th, that sucheducational monasteries nurse conceit and arrogance; and this the mass of West Pointers have prominently shown during this war in their relations with the noble and devoted volunteers, and that this arrogant spirit of clique and of caste works mischievously in the army; 5th, that exceptions, noble and patriotic, as a Reno, a Lyons, a Bayard, a Stevens, and other such heroes and patriots, do not disprove the general rule; 6th, that Lyons, Grant, Rosecrans, Hooker, Heintzelman, etc., have shown glorious qualities not on account of what they learnt in West Point, but by what they did not learn there; 7th, that these heroes rose above the dry and narrow school wisdom, and are what they are, not because educated in West Point, but notwithstanding their education there. And here I interrupt the further enumeration to give an extract from a private letter directed to me by one of the most eminent pupils from West Point, and the ablesttrue, notmock, engineer in our army:
"In regard to your views of West Point's influence I am at a loss to make any answer," (the writer is a great defender of West Point,) "but would suggest that it may be after all not West Point, but the want ofa supreme handto our military affairs tocombineandusethe materials West Point furnishes, that is in fault. * * *West Point cannot make a general—no military school can—but it can and does furnish good soldiers. All the distinguished Confederate generals are West Pointers, and yet we know the men, andknow that neither Lee, nor Johnson nor Jackson, nor Beauregard, nor the Hills are men of any very extraordinary ability," etc., etc., etc.
To this I answer: the rebels are with their heart and soul in their cause, and thus their capacities are expanded, they are inspired on the field of battle. (Similar answer I gave to General McDowell about six months ago.) So was our Lyon, so are Rosecrans, Hooker, Grant, and a few others; and for such generals, Senators Trumbull, Wade and Lane ardently called in the above debate.
I continue the enumeration: 8th. The military direction of the war is exclusively in the hands of a West Point clique, and of West Point engineers,—notvery muchwith their hearts in the people's cause; 9th, that that clique of West Point engineers from McClellan down to Halleck prevents any truly higher military capacity getting a free untrammelled scope, (General Halleck with all his might opposes giving the command of the army to Hooker,) and this Halleck, an engineer from West Point, who never saw a cartridge burnt or a file of soldiers fighting, to-day decides the military fate of our country on the authority of a book said to be on military science, but if such a book had been written by any officer in the armies of France, Prussia or Russia, the ignorant author would have had the friendly advice from his superiors to resign and select some pursuit in life more congenial to hisintellectual capacities; further, this Halleck complains in following words: "that they (the Administration) made him leave a profitable business in San Francisco, and pay him only 5,000 dollars to fightTHEIR(not his) battles." So much for a Halleck. 10th. That the West Point clique of engineers, the McClellans, the Hallecks, the Franklins, etc., have brought the country to the verge of the grave, as stated by Senator Lane.
Such were the facts established by the patriotic and not would-be-wise Senators; and there is an illustration recorded in history as proof that the above not engineering Senators were right in their assertions. Frederick II. was in no military school; the captains second to Napoleon in the French wars were Hoche, Moreau, and Massena, all of them from private life.
—The clique of engineers has the Potomac Army altogether in its grasp, and has reduced and perverted the spirit of the noble children of the people. Oh, the sooner this army shall be torn from the hands of the clique the nearer and surer will be the salvation of the country.
The clique accuses the volunteers; but the clique, the engineers in power have disorganized, morally and materially, and disgraced the Army of the Potomac. They did this from the day of the encampments around Washington, in the fall of 1861, down to the day of Fredericksburgh. Fredericksburghwas altogether prepared by engineers; at Fredericksburgh the engineer Franklin did not even mount his horse when his soldiers were misled and miscommanded—by himself.
—Stragglers are generated by generals. Besides, to explain straggling, I quote from agenuinebook on genuine military science, published in Berlin in 1862, by Captain Boehn, the most eminent professor at the military school in Potsdam: "The greatest losses, during a war, inflicted on an army are by maladies and by straggling. Such losses are five times greater than those of killed and wounded; and anintelligent administrationtakes preparatory measures to meet the losses and to compensate them. Such measures of foresight consist in organizing depots for battalions, which depots ought to equal one sixth of the number of the active army." O, Halleck, where are the depots?
—"In any ordinary campaign, excepting a winter campaign, the losses amount (as established by experience) to one half in infantry, one fourth in cavalry, and to one third in artillery." (Do you know any thing about it, O, Halleck?)
Let the people be warned, and they may understand the location of the cause generating further disasters. If the Army of the Potomac shall win glory, it will win it notwithstanding the West Point clique of engineers. The disasters have root in theWhite House, where the advice of such a Halleck prevails.
—I know very well that the formation of the volunteers in respective States and by the Governors of such States raises a great difficulty in organizing and preparing reserves. But talent and genius reveal themselves by overpowering difficulties considered to be insurmountable. And Halleck is a man both of genius and talent.
Taking into account the patriotism, the devotion of the governors of the respective states, [notà laCopperhead Seymour], it would have been possible, nay, even easy to organize some kind of reserves. O, Halleck, O, fogies!
January 17.—Mr. Lincoln loads on his shoulders all kinds of responsibilities, more so than even Jackson would have dared to take. Admirable if generated by the boldness of self-consciousness, of faith, and of convictions. True men measure the danger—and the means in their grasp to meet the emergency; others play unconsciously with events, as do children with explosive and death-dealing matters.
January 17.—General and astronomer Mitchel's death may be credited to Halleck. Halleck and Buell's envy—if not worse—paralysed Mitchel and Turtschin's activity in the West. Mitchel and Turtschin were too quick, that is, too patriotic. In early summer, 1862, they were sure to takeChattanooga, a genuine strategic point, one of those principal knots and nurseries in the life of the secesh. How imprudent! Chattanooga is still in the hands of the rebels, and if we ever take it, it will cost streams of blood and millions of money. Down with Mitchel and Turtschin. Mitchel'sexcrementawere more valuable than are Halleck's heavy, but not expanding, brains. Mitchel revealed at once all the qualities of an eminent, if not of a great general. Quickness of mind, fertility of resources. An astronomer, a mathematician, Mitchel's mind was familiar with broad combinations. Such a mind penetrated space, calculated means and chances, balanced forces and probabilities. Not to compare, however, is it to be borne in mind that Napoleon was a mathematician in the fullest sense, and not an engineer, not a translator.
January 18.—Mr. Lincoln's letter to McClellan when the hero of the Copperheads was in search of mud in the Peninsula. The letter rings as sound common sense; it shows, however, that common sense debarred of strong will remains unproductive of good. Mr. Lincoln commonly shows strong will, in the wrong place.
——ein Theil von jener Krafft,Die stehts das Guthe will, und stehts das Boese schaff.
January 18.—The emancipation proclamation is out. Very well. But until yet not the slightest signs of any measures to execute the proclamation, at once, and in its broadest sense. Now days, even hours, are equal to years in common times. Had Lincoln his heart in the proclamation, on January 2d he would begin to work out its expansion, realization, execution. I wish Lincoln may lift himself, or be lifted by angels to the grandeur of the work. But it is impossible. Surrounded as he is, and led in the strings by Seward, Blair, Halleck, and by border-state politicians, the best that can be expected are belated half measures.
Stanton comprehends broadly and thoroughly the question of emancipation and of arming the Africo-Americans. As I intend to realize my plans of last year and organise Africo-American regiments, I had conversations with Stanton, and find him more thorough about the matter than is any body whom I met. He agreed with me, that the cursed land of Secessia ought to be surrounded by camps to enlist and organise the enslaved, as a scorpion surrounded with burning coals. Such organizations introduced rapidly and simultaneously on all points, would shake Secessia to its foundations, and put an end to guerillas,aliasmurderers and robbers. We will again think and talk it over. But as is wont with Lincoln, he will hesitate, hesitate, until much of precious time will be lost.
January 18.—A surgeon in one of the hospitals in Alexandria writes in a private note:
"Our wounded bear their sufferings nobly; I have hardly heard a word of complaint from one of them. A soldier from the 'stern and rock bound coast' of Maine—a victim of the slaughter at Fredericksburgh—lay in this hospital, his life ebbing away from a fatal wound. He had a father, brothers and sisters, a wife, and one little boy of two or three years old, on whom his heart seemed set. Half an hour before he ceased to breathe, I stood by his side, holding his hand. He was in the full exercise of his intellectual faculties, and knew he had but a brief time to live. He was asked if he had any message to leave for his dear ones whom he loved so well. "Tell them," said he, "how I died—they know how I lived!"
January 19.—Senator Wright, of Indiana, stirred the hearts of the Senate and of the people. It was not the oration of a rhetor—it was the confession of an ardent, pure patriot. I never heard or witnessed anything so inspiring and so kindling to soul and heart.
January 20.—General Butler palsied and shelved, Halleck all powerful and with full steam running the country and the army to destruction—such is the truest photograph of the situation. But as an adamantine rock among storms, so Mr. Lincoln remains unmoved. Unmoved by the yawning, bleeding wounds of the devoted, noble people—unmoved by the prayers and supplication of patriots—ofhis—once—best friends. Mr. Lincoln answers, with dignity not Roman, and with obstinacy unparallelled even by Jackson, that he will stand or fall with his present advisers, and that he takes the responsibility for all the cursed misdeeds of Seward, Halleck, Chase, and others. So children are ready to set a match to a powder magazine unconscious of the terrible results—unconscious of the awful responsibility for its destructive action.
A death pang runs through one's body to see how rapidly the dial marks the disappearing hours, and how unrelentingly approaches March 4th, and the death-knell of this present patriotic, devoted Congress. For this terrible storm and clash of events, the people, perhaps, feel not the immensity of the loss. Paralyzed as Congress has been and now is, by the infernal machinations of Seward, Chase, and others, and by Mr. Lincoln's stubborn helplessness, the patriots in both Houses nevertheless, succeeded in redeeming the pledge which the name of America gives to the expansive progress of humanity. The patriots of both Houses, as the exponents of the noble and loftiest aspirations of the American people, whipped in—and this literally, not figuratively—whipped Mr. Lincoln into the glory of having issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The laws promulgated by this dying Congress initiated the Emancipation—generated the Proclamation of the 22d September, and of January 1st.History will not allow one to wear borrowed plumage.
—Congress ought not to have so easily abdicated its well established rights of more absolute and direct control of the deeds of the Administration and of its clerks,aliasSecretaries of Departments. It is to be eternally regretted that Congress has shown such unnecessary leniency; but in justice it must be said that the patriotic and high-minded members of Congress wished to avoid the degrading necessity of showing the nation the prurient administrative sores. Advised, directed, tutored and pushed by Seward, Blair and Chase, Mr. Lincoln is—innocently—as grasping for power, as are any of those despots not over respectfully recorded by history.
With all this, the presence of Congress keeps in awe the reckless and unscrupulous Administration, as, according to the pious belief of medieval times, holy water awed the devil. But Congress once out of the way, without having succeeded in rescuing Mr. Lincoln from the hands of those mean, ignorant, egotistic bunglers, all the time squinting towards the succession to the White House, and unable to surround the President with men and patriots, then all the plagues of Egypt may easily overrun this fated country. Such conjurors of evil as the Sewards, Hallecks, and others, will have no dread of any holy water before them, and they will be sure that the great party of the "Copperheads" in the futureCongress will applaud them for all the mischief done, and lift them sky high, if they succeed in treading down in the gutter, or in any way palsying emancipation, tarnishing the people's noble creed, and endangering the country's holiest cause.
General Fitz-John Porter's trial before court-martial ended in his dismissal, but ought punishment to fall on him alone, when the butchers of Fredericksburgh and when the pontoon men are in high command? when a Franklin is still sustained, when a Seward and a Halleck remain firm in their high places as the gates of hell?
January 20.—Wrote a respectful letter to the President on Halleck's military science, his book, and capacity. Told respectfully to Mr. Lincoln that not even the Sultan would dare to palm such a Halleck on his army and on his people.
Mr. Lincoln in his greatness says that "he will stand and fall with his Cabinet." O, Mr. Lincoln! O, Mr. Lincoln! purple-born sovereigns can no more speak so!
Mr. Lincoln! with the gang of politicians, your advisers and friends,you all desire immensely, and will feebly. You desire the reconstruction of the Union, and you almost shun the ways and means to do it. And thus this noble people is dragged to a slaughter house.
Parumne campis atque Neptuno superFusum est—[Yankee] sanguinis?
January 21.—Deep, irreconcilable as is my hatred of slavocrats and rebels, nevertheless I am forced to admire the high intellectual qualities of their chiefs, when compared with that of ours. Of LincolnversusJeff Davis I spoke in the first volume. But now Lee, Jackson, Hill, Ewall,versusHalleck, McClellan, McDowell, Franklin, etc.
January 22.—Wendell Phillips'sAmenoration to the Proclamation is noble and torrent-like oratory. Greeley is the better Greeley of former times. I heartily wish to admire and speak well of Greeley, as of every body else. Is it my fault that they give me no occasion?
January 23.—General Fitz-John Porter, McClellan's pet, told me to-day, that after the battle at Hanover Court House, he supplicated McClellan to attack Richmond at once—which in Porter's opinion could have been taken without much ado,—and not to change his base to James River; and even Fitz-John could not prevail on this demigod of imbeciles, traitors and intriguers.
January 24.—Here is one of the thousand flagrant lies with which Seward entangles Lincoln, as with a net of steel. Lincoln assured General Ashley that the public is unjust toward Seward in accusing him of having worked for the defeat of Wadsworth. That they have been the best friends for long years; that, when Military Governor of Washington, Wadsworth was a daily visitor inSeward's house; and that, during the canvass, Wadsworth consulted with Seward concerning his (Wadsworth's) actions.
Mr. Seward knows that every one of those assertions which he or Thurlow Weed pushed down the throat of Mr. Lincoln is a flagrant lie. Every one knows that for many, many years the high-toned Wadsworth had in utter detestation Mr. Seward's character as a lawyer or as a public man, and that he never spoke to him, and never was his political or private friend.
I am sorry to bring such details before the public, but how otherwise convict a liar? As for Thurlow Weed's secret and open machinations against the election of Wadsworth, only an idiot or a s.... doubts them. Ask the New York politicians, provided they have manhood to tell the truth.
January 24th.—Caveant Senators and Representatives!cannot be too often hurled into the ears of the people and of the Congressmen. The time runs lightning like—the 4th of March approaches with comet-like velocity. If the tempest is not roaring, its signs are visible, and most of the helmsmen are blind or unsteady. Oh! could every move of the pendulums of the clocks of the Senate Chamber and the Representatives' Hall, thunder-like repeat thatcaveant, transmitted by the purest and best days of Rome! The Republicans and many of the warDemocrats are faithful and true to the people and to its sacred cause; but the names of the "filibustering" traitors in both houses ought to be nailed to the gallows!
European winds bring Louis Napoleon's opening speech, and the confession, that although once rebuked, he, the dissolute, the profligate, with his corrosive breath still intends to pollute the virginity of our country; for such is the indelible stain to any nation, to any people which accepts or submits to any, even the most friendly, foreign mediation or arbitration. Never, never any great nation or any self-respecting government, accepted or submitted to any similar foreign interference. Of the peoples, nations and governments, which allowed such interference, some collapsed into degradation for a long time, only slowly recovering, like Spain; others, like Poland, disappeared. Those who advocate such mediation unveil their weakness, their thorough ignorance of the world's history and of the historic and political bearings of the words,mediation, andarbitration; and to crown all, these advocates bring to market their imbecility.
The Africo-Americans ought to receive military organization and be armed. But it ought to be done instantly and without loss of time; it ought to be done earnestly, boldly, broadly; it ought to be done at once on all points and on the largest scale; it ought to be done here in Washington, under theeyes of the chief of the people; here in the heart of the country; here, so to speak, in the face of slave-breeding Virginia, this most intense focus of treason; it ought to be done here, that the loyal freemen of Virginia's soil be enabled to fight and crush the F. F. V's, the progeny of hell; it ought to be done here on every inch of soil covered with shattered shackles; and not partially on the outskirts, in the Carolinas and Louisiana. Stanton, alone, and Welles among the helmsmen, are so inspired; but alas, for the rest of the crew.
On the flags of the Africo-Americans under my command, I shall inscribe:Hic niger est! hunc tu (rebel) caveto!I shall inculcate upon my men that they had better not make prisoners in the battle, and not allow themselves to be taken alive.
January 25th.—So Gen. McClellan's services to the rebellion are acknowledged by the gift of a splendid mansion situated in New York, in the social sewer of American society. The donors, are the shavers from Wall Street, individuals who coin money from the blood and from the misfortunes of the people, and who by high rents mercilessly crush the poor; who sacrifice nothing for the sacred cause; who, if they put their names as voluntary contributors of a trifle for the war, thousand and thousand times recover that trifle which they ostentatiously throw to gull the good-natured public opinion; not to speak of those so numerous amongthe McClellanites, who openly or secretly are in mental communion with treason and rebellion. Naturally, all this gang honors its hero.
McClellan's pedestal is already built of the corpses of hundreds of thousands butchered by his generalship, poisoned in the Chickahominy, and decimated by diseases. His trophies are the wooden guns from Centreville and Manassas.
January 25th.—What from the beginning of this war, I witness as administrative acts and dispositions, and further the debates in Congress on the various bills for military organizations and for the organization of the various branches of the military medical, surgical, and quartermaster's service; all this fully convinces me that the military and administrative routine, as transmitted by Gen. Scott, or by his school, and as continued by his pets and remnants, is almost the paramount cause of all mischief and evils. In the medical, surgical, and in the quartermasters' offices, ought have been appointed young civilians and business men as chiefs, having under them some old routinists for the sake of technicalities of the service. Such men would have done by far better than those old intellectual drones. A merchant accustomed to carry on an extensive and complicated business would have been by far a better quartermaster-general—Intendant des armées—than the wholly inexperienced Gen. Meigs. This last would serve as an aid to the merchant. At the beginningof the war, I suggested to Senator Wilson to import such quartermasters from France or Russia, men experienced and accustomed to provide for armies of 100,000 men each. By paying well, such men could have been easily found, and the military medical and surgical bureau, as organized by Scott, was about sixty years behind real science. These senile representatives of non-science snubbed off Professor Van Buren of the New York academy, to whom they compare as the light of a common match to that of calcium. If men like Dr. Van Buren, Dr. Barker, and others of real science from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, etc., had been listened to, thousands and thousands of limbs and lives would have been saved and preserved.
January 25th.—Mr. Lincoln relishes the idea that if the cause of the North is victorious, no one can claim much credit for it. I put this on record for some future assumptions. Mr. Lincoln is the best judge of the merits of his clerks and lieutenants. But Mr. Lincoln forgets that the success will be due exclusively to the people—and,per contra, he alone will be arrayed for the failure. His friends and advisers, as the Sewards, the Weeds, the Blairs, the Hallecks, will very cleverly wash their gored hands from any complicity with him—Lincoln.
The army to be formed from Africo-Americans is to be entrusted to converted conservatives. It is feared that sincere abolitionists if entrusted with the command,may use the forces for some awful, untold aims. It is feared that abolitionists once possessed of arms and troops, may use them indiscriminately, and emancipate right and left, by friend and foe, paying no attention to the shrieks of border-States, of old women, of politicians, of cowards, of Sewardites; nay, it is feared that genuine abolitionists may carry too far their notions of absolute equality of races, and without hesitation treat the white rebels with even more severity than they threaten to treat loyal armed Africo-Americans. And why not?...
The history of England, the history of any free country has not on record a position thus anomalous, even humiliating, as is that of the patriots in Congress, thanks to Mr. Lincoln's helpless stubbornness. The patriots forcibly must consider Mr. Lincoln, even Sewardised, Blairised, Halleckised as he is, as being the only legal power for the salvation of the country. The patriots must support him, and instead of exposing the wretched faults, mistakes, often ill-will of his administration, must defend the administration against the attacks of the Copperheads, who try to destroy or disorganize the administration on account of that atom of good that it accidentally carries out on its own hook. And thus the patriots must suffer and bear patiently abuses heaped on them by the treasonable or by the stupid press, by intriguers and traitors; and patriots cannotmake even the slightest attempt to vindicate their names.
January 26th.—The visits to the White House and the "I had a talk with the President," are among the prominent causes of the distracted condition of affairs. With comparatively few exceptions, almost everybody expands a few inches in his own estimation, when he says to his listeners, nay, to his friends: "I had a talk with the President." Of course it is no harm in private individuals to have sucha talk, but I have frequently observed and experienced that public men had better refrain from having any talk with him. Very often he is not a jot improved by their talk, and they come out from the interview worsted in some sort or other.
Sumner, the Roman, the Cicero, was to-day urged by several abolitionists from Boston to expose the mischief of both the foreign and the domestic policy of Seward. The Senator replied that he is more certain to succeed against that public nuisance and public enemy by not attacking him openly. I vainly ransack my recollection of my classic reading for the name of any Roman who ever made such a reply.
January 26th: Two o'clock P. M.—Hooker is in command! And patriotic hearts thrill with joy! Mud, bad season, mortality, loss of time, demoralization, such is the inheritance left by McClellan, Halleck and Burnside—such are the results preparedby the infamous West Point and other muddy intriguers in Washington, and in the army,—such is the inheritance transmitted to Hooker, by the cursed Administration procrastinations. In all military history there is seldom, if ever, a record of a commander receiving an army under such ominous circumstances. If Hooker succeeds, then his genius will astonish even his warmest friends.
When Hooker was wounded, and in the hospital, he repeatedly complained to me of the deficiency of the staffs. I reminded him of it, and he promised to do his best to organize a staff without a flaw.
I immediately wrote to Stanton, sending him several pages translated from the German works of Boehn (before spoken of) to give to the Secretary a general idea of what are the qualities, the science, the knowledge and the duties of a good chief of staff. I explained that the staff and the chief of the staff of an army are to it what the brains and the nervous system are to the human body.
9 o'clock, P. M.—I am told that Hooker wished to have for his chief of staff General Stone, (white-washed) who is considered to be one of the most brilliant capacities of the army. If so, it was a good choice, and the opposition made by Stanton is for me—at the best—unintelligible.
Hooker selected Butterfield. What a fall from Stone to Butterfield. Between the two extendhundreds, nay, thousands, of various gradations. Gen. Butterfield is brave, can well organize a regiment or a brigade, but he has not and can not have the first atom of knowledge required in a chief of staff of such a large army. Staff duties require special studies, they are the highest military science; and where, in the name of all, could Butterfield have acquired it? I am certain Butterfield is not even aware that staff duties are a special science. All this is a very bad omen, very bad, very bad. Literally they laugh at me; now they hurrah for Hooker. May they not cry very soon on account of Hooker's staff. When I warn, Senators and Representatives tell me that I am very difficult to be satisfied. We will see.
January 27.—It is said that Franklin, Sumner, and even Heintzelman declared they would not serve under Hooker. Let them go. Bow them out, the hole in the army will be invisible. I am sorry that Heintzelman plays such pranks, as he is a very good general and a very good man. Well, a new galaxy of generals and commanders is the inevitable gestation of every war. Seldom if ever the same men end a war who began it. New men will prove better than the present sickly reputations consecrated by Scott, West Point and Washington.
January 27.—Governor Andrew—the man always to the point, or as the French would saytoujours à la hauteur de la question—insists onforming African or black regiments in Boston from free blacks. Such formations interfere not with my project, as I principally, nay exclusively, look to contrabands, to actual slaves. Governor Andrew wishes to give the start, to stir up the Government and other Governors and to drag them in his footsteps. He is the representative man of the new and better generation which ought to have the affairs of the country in hand, and not these old worn-out hacks who are at it now. If such new men were at the helm in both civil and military affairs, Secesh would have been already crushed and Emancipation accomplished. To such a new generation belongs Coffey, one of the Assistant Attorney Generals, Austin Stevens, Jr., Charles Dana, Woodman, etc., etc. The country bristles with such men, and only prejudices, stupidity, and routine prevents them from becoming really active and from saving the country.
January 27.—The patriotic majorities of both Houses of Congress pass laws after laws concerning the finances, arming the Africo-Americans, increasing the powers of the President, etc., each of which taken alone, would not only save the cause but raise it triumphant over the ruins of crime and of slavery, if used by patriotic, firm, devoted, unegotistic hands and brains. But alas! alas! very little of such, except in one or two individuals, is locatedin the various edifices in and around the presidential quarters.