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! -- McClellan publishes a slave-catching order -- The
people move onward -- Mr. Seward again -- West Point -- The
Washington defences -- What a Russian officer thought of them --
Oh, for battles! -- Fremont wishes to attack Memphis; a bold
move! -- Seward's influence over Lincoln -- The people for
Fremont -- Col. Romanoff's opinion of the generals -- McClellan
refuses to move -- Manoeuvrings -- 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 headquarters in the camp among the soldiers.
The life in the tent will inspire him. It alone inspired Frederick 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 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. Napoleon differently fought the
Vendeans, and differently 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 administration. 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 letter from F. Blair to
his brother. It is the letter of a patriot, but not of an intriguer.
Fremont establishes an absurd rule concerning the breach of military
discipline, and shows by it his ignorance and narrow-mindedness. So
Fremont, and other bungling 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 Alexander 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 criticised loudly Giulay, their commander,
etc., etc.
Conspiracy to destroy Fremont on account of his slave proclamation.
The conspirators are the Missouri slaveholders: Senator Brodhead, old
Bates, Scott, McClellan, 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 several 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
military capacity McDowell is by far superior to McClellan. 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 administration. Are we already so far?
McClellan under fatal influences of the rampant pro-slavery men, and
of partisans of the South, as is a Barlow. All the former associations
of McClellan 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.
McClellan published a slave-catching order. Oh that he may discard
those bad men around him!
Struggles with evils, above all with domestic, internal 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 external 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 internal evils. A nation even under a despotic
rule may overcome and repel an invasion, as long as the struggle
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 cause of the freemen of the North succumbs, then humanity is
humiliated. This high-spirited exclamation belongs to Tassara, the
Minister 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 qualities, 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 Seward'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-nothingism 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, have not produced much. The defences of
Washington, so much clarioned 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
Sebastopol, after having surveyed these defences 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 presumption.
If we are 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 uphill work.
If not McClellan himself, some intriguers around him already dream,
nay, even attempt to form a pure military, that is, a reckless,
unprincipled, unpatriotic party. These men foment the irritation
between 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 the President opposed this truly great military
conception.
Mr. Lincoln is pulled in all directions. His intentions 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 Lincoln, but do not yet come to daylight. Mr. Lincoln has no
experience of men and events, and no knowledge of the past. Seward's
influence over Lincoln may be explained 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 inspiration compensates the deficiency or
want of information acquired by studies. Weak minds, when transported
into higher regions, become confused and dizzy. Which of the two will
be Mr. Lincoln's fate?
The administration hesitates to give to the struggle 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, 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
300,000 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. 600 guns!
But 100 guns in a line cover a mile. What will he do with 600? 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 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 inaction, and the people see what
is right and necessary.
Gen. Banks, a true and devoted patriot, is sacrificed 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 considerable part of the
free States, and his opinions are 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 mischief, but, from effect to cause, the
accusation ascends to General Scott.
Gen. Scott insisted to have Gen. Harney appointed to the command of
Missouri, and hated Lyon. If, even after Harney'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 Orleans. 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 the exercise of
power makes it crotchety and dissimulative in contact with men. To my
disgust, I witness this all around me.
The American people, its institutions, the Union--all have lost their
virginity, their political innocence. 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 American 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 supernatural military
wisdom. Oh, poor nation!
In Europe clouds gather over Mexico. Whatever it eventually may come
to, I suggested to Mr. Seward 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.
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 action; that he, McClellan, in
every step is obliged to fight Gen. Scott's inertia; and McClellan
grows impatient, and shows it to Scott.