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 distrust 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!
As in the mediaeval epoch, and some time thereafter, 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. McClellan 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 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
(tenfold 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 increases their moral force. Every
day of their existence shows their intrinsic vitality.
The theory of starving the rebels out is got up by imbeciles, wholly
ignorant of 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.
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
general, 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
wiseacres. 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 situation.
_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
kindred, to be rather humbugs; but, nevertheless, I was struck with
the soft, insignificant inexpressiveness 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 unmilitary 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 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, notwithstanding 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 considered 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.
Cannonading alone never constituted and decided a battle. No position
can be taken by cannonading alone, and shells alone do not always
force an enemy 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 decided when batteries were stormed and taken. Eylau was a battle
of charges by cavalry and by infantry, besides a terrible cannonading,
etc., etc. McClellan 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 Malakoff. What a confusion of
notions, what a misappreciation of relative conditions!
I cannot express my sad, mournful feelings, during 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 despotism 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 Beauregard. 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 imbecile, regular martinets surrounding
McClellan still nurse his distrust in the volunteers. All the wealth,
energy, intellect of the country, is concentrated in the hands of
McClellan, and he uses it to throw up entrenchments. The partisans of
McClellan point to his highly scientific preparations--his science. He
may have some little of it, but 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 Slidell 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 government. Mason and Slidell are
not common passengers, nor are they political refugees invoking the
protection of any neutral flag. They are travelling commissioners of
war, of bloodshed and rebellion; 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_.
Mr. Adams, in his official relations with the English 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 imagination ruins a statesman. Mr. Seward
must lose credit at home and abroad for having prophesied, and having
his prophecies end in smoke. When Hatteras was taken (Gen. Scott
protested against the expedition), Mr. S. assured me that it was the
beginning of the end. A diplomat here made the observation 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 missions to Europe. He very
little knows the habit 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 introduced 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 insolent English dispatch
concerning the _habeas corpus_ and the arrests of dubious, if not
treacherous, Englishmen. 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 Metternich 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 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 soldiers 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 establish the military superiority of the
arrogant, reckless, piratical South. The South would teem with
hundreds of thousands of men ready for any piratical, 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 Tartars
of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, were virtuous and civilized in
comparison with what would be an independent, man-stealing, and
man-whipping 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
pestilential 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 embrace about
twelve millions,--_every_ Southern gentleman being a pirate at heart.
This is what the Northern people know by experience 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, are soured
against the people and public opinion for distrusting, or rather for
criticising their little display of statesmanlike activity. How
unjust! As a general rule, of all human sentiments, confidence is the
most scrutinizing one. If _confidence_ is bestowed, it wants to
perfectly know the _why_. But from the outset of this war the American
people gave and give to everybody full, unsuspecting confidence,
without asking the why, without even scrutinizing the actions which
were to justify the claim.
Up to this day Secesh is the positive pole; the Union is the
negative,--it is the blow recipient. When, oh, when will come the
opposite? When will we deal blows? Not under McClellan, I suspect.