Ball's Bluff -- Whitewashing -- "Victoria! Old Scott gone
overboard!" -- His fatal influence -- His conceit -- Cameron --
Intervention -- More reviews -- Weed, Everett, Hughes -- Gov.
Andrew -- Boutwell -- Mason and Slidell caught -- Lincoln
frightened by the South Carolina success -- Waits unnoticed in
McClellan's library -- Gen. Thomas -- Traitors and pedants -- The
Virginia campaign -- West Point -- McClellan's speciality -- When
will they begin to see through him?
The season is excellent for military operations, such as any Napoleon
could wish it. And we, lying not on our oars or arms, but in our beds,
as our _spes patriae_ is warmly and cosily established in a large
house, receiving there the incense and salutations of all flunkeys.
Even cabinet ministers crowd McClellan's antechambers!
The massacre at Ball's Bluff is the work either of treason, or of
stupidity, or of cowardice, or most probably of all three united.
No European government and no European nation would thus coolly bear
it. Any commander culpable of such stupidity would be forever
disgraced, and dismissed from the army. Here the administration, the
Cabinet, and all the Scotts, the McClellans, the Thomases, etc.,
strain their brains and muscles to whitewash themselves or the
culprit--to represent this massacre as something very innocent.
Victoria! Victoria! Old Scott, Old Mischief, gone overboard! So
vanished one of the two evil genii keeping guard over Mr. Lincoln's
brains. But it will not be so easy to redress the evil done by Scott.
He nailed the country's cause to such a turnpike that any of his
successors will perhaps be unable to undo what Old Mischief has done.
Scott might have had certain, even eminent, military capacity; but,
all things considered, he had it only on a small scale. Scott never
had in his hand large numbers, and hundreds of European generals of
divisions would do the same that Scott did, even in Mexico. Any one in
Europe, who in some way or other participated in the events of the
last forty years, has had occasion to see or participate in one single
day in more and better fighting, to hear more firing, and smell more
powder, than has General Scott in his whole life.
Scott's fatal influence palsied, stiffened, and poisoned every noble
or higher impulse, and every aspiration of the people. Scott
diligently sowed the first seeds of antagonism between volunteers and
regulars, and diligently nursed them. Around his person in the War
Department, and in the army, General Scott kept and maintained
officers, who, already before the inauguration, declared, and daily
asserted, that if it comes to a war, few officers of the army will
unite with the North and remain loyal to the Union.
He never forgot to be a Virginian, and was filled with all a
Virginian's conceit. To the last hour he warded off blows aimed at
Virginia. To this hour he never believed in a serious war, and now
_requiescat in pace_ until the curse of coming generations.
McClellan is invested with all the powers of Scott. McClellan has more
on his shoulders than any man--a Napoleon not excepted--can stand; and
with his very limited capacity McClellan must necessarily break under
it. Now McClellan will be still more idolized. He is already a kind of
dictator, as Lincoln, Seward, etc., turn around him.
In a conversation with Cameron, I warned him against bestowing such
powers on McClellan. "What shall we do?" was Cameron's answer;
"neither the President nor I know anything about military affairs."
Well, it is true; but McClellan is scarcely an apprentice.
Again the intermittent fear, or fever, of foreign intervention. How
absurd! Americans belittle themselves talking and thinking about it.
The European powers will not, and cannot. That is my creed and my
answer; but some of our agents, diplomats, and statesmen, try to made
capital for themselves from this fever which they evoke to establish
before the public that their skill preserves the country from foreign
intervention. Bosh!
All the good and useful produced in the life and in the economy of
nations, all the just and the right in their institutions, all the ups
and downs, misfortunes and disasters befalling them, all this was, is,
and forever will be the result of logical deductions from
pre-existing dates and facts. And here almost everybody forgets the
yesterday.
A revolution imposes obligations. A revolution makes imperative the
development and the practical application of those social principles
which are its basis.
The American Revolution of 1776 proclaimed self-government, equality
before all, happiness of all, etc.; it is therefore the peremptory
duty of the American people to uproot domestic oligarchy, based upon
living on the labor of an enslaved man; it has to put a stop to the
moral, intellectual, and physical servitude of both, of whites and of
colored.
Eminent men in America are taunted with the ambition to reach the
White House. In itself it is not condemnable; it is a noble or an
ignoble ambition, according to the ways and means used to reach that
aim. It is great and stirring to see one's name recorded in the list
of Presidents of the United States; but there is still a record far
shorter, but by far more to be envied--a record venerated by our
race--it is the record of truly _great men_. The actually inscribed
runners for the White House do not think of this.
No one around me here seems to understand (and no one is familiar
enough with general history) that protracted wars consolidate a
nationality. Every day of Southern existence shapes it out more and
more into a _nation_, with all the necessary moral and material
conditions of existence.
Seeing these repeated reviews, I cannot get rid of the idea that by
such shows and displays McClellan tries to frighten the rebels in the
Chinaman fashion.
The collateral missions to England, France, and Spain, are to add
force to our cause before the public opinion as well as before the
rulers. But what a curious choice of men! It would be called even an
unhappy one. Thurlow Weed, with his offhand, apparently sincere, if
not polished ways, may not be too repulsive to English refinement,
provided he does not buttonhole his interlocutionists, or does not pat
them on the shoulder. So Thurlow Weed will be dined, wined, etc. But
doubtless the London press will show him up, or some "Secesh" in
London will do it. I am sure that Lord Lyons, as it is his paramount
duty, has sent to Earl Russell a full and detailed biography of this
Seward's _alter ego_, sent _ad latus_ to Mr. Adams. Thurlow Weed will
be considered an agreeable fellow; but he never can acquire much
weight and consideration, neither with the statesmen, nor with the
members of the government, nor in saloons, nor with the public at
large.
Edward Everett begged to be excused from such a false position offered
to him in London. Not fish, not flesh. It was rather an offence to
proffer it to Everett. The old patriot better knows Europe, its
cabinets, and exigencies, than those who attempted to intricate him in
this ludicrous position. He is right, and he will do more good here
than he could do in London--there on a level with Thurlow Weed!
Archbishop Hughes is to influence Paris and France,--but whom? The
public opinion, which is on our side, is anti-Roman, and Hughes is an
Ultra Montane--an opinion not over friendly to Louis Napoleon. The
French clergy in every way, in culture, wisdom, instruction, theology,
manners, deportment, etc., is superior to Hughes in incalculable
proportions, and the French clergy are already generally anti-slavery.
Hughes to act on Louis Napoleon! Why! the French Emperor can outwit a
legion of Hugheses, and do this without the slightest effort. Besides,
for more than a century European sovereigns, governments, and
cabinets, have generally given up the use of bishops, etc., for
political, public, or confidential missions. Mr. Seward stirs up old
dust. All the liberal party in Europe or France will look astonished,
if not worse, at this absurdity.
All things considered, it looks like one of Seward's personal tricks,
and Seward outwitted Chase, took him in by proffering a similar
mission to Chase's friend, Bishop McIlvaine. But I pity Dayton. He is
a high-toned man, and the mission of Hughes is a humiliation to
Dayton.
Whatever may be the objects of these missions, they look like petty
expedients, unworthy a minister of a great government.
Mason and Slidell caught. England will roar, but here the people are
satisfied. Some of the diplomats make curious faces. Lord Lyons
behaves with dignity. The small Bremen flatter right and left, and do
it like little lap-dogs.
Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, ex-Governor Boutwell, are tip-top
men--men of the people. The Blairs are too heinous, too violent, in
their persecution of Fremont. Warned M. Blair not to protect one whom
Fremont deservedly expelled. But M. Blair, in his spite against
Fremont, took a mean adventurer by the hand, and entangled therein the
President.
The vessel and the crew are excellent, and would easily obey the hand
of a helmsman, but there is the rub, where to find him? Lincoln is a
simple man of the prairie, and his eyes penetrate not the fog, the
tempest. They do not perceive the signs of the times--cannot embrace
the horizon of the nation. And thus his small intellectual insight is
dimmed by those around him. Lincoln begins now already to believe that
he is infallible; that he is ahead of the people, and frets that the
people may remain behind. Oh simplicity or conceit!
Again, Lincoln is frightened with the success in South Carolina, as in
his opinion this success will complicate the question of slavery. He
is frightened as to what he shall do with Charleston and Augusta,
provided these cities are taken.
It is disgusting to hear with what superciliousness the different
members of the Cabinet speak of the approaching Congress--and not one
of them is in any way the superior of many congressmen.
When Congress meets, the true national balance account will be
struck. The commercial and piratical flag of the secesh is virtually
in all waters and ports. (The little cheese-eater, the Hollander, was
the first to raise a fuss against the United States concerning the
piratical flag. This is not to be forgotten.) 2d. Prestige, to a great
extent, lost. 3d. Millions upon millions wasted. Washington besieged
and blockaded, and more than 200,000 men kept in check by an enemy not
by half as strong. 4th. Every initiative which our diplomacy tried
abroad was wholly unsuccessful, and we are obliged to submit to new
international principles inaugurated at our cost; and, summing up,
instead of a broad, decided, general policy, we have vacillation,
inaction, tricks, and expedients. The people fret, and so will the
Congress. Nations are as individuals; any partial disturbance in a
part of the body occasions a general chill. Nature makes efforts to
check the beginning of disease, and so do nations. In the human
organism nature does not submit willingly to the loss of health, or of
a limb, or of life. Nature struggles against death. So the people of
the Union will not submit to an amputation, and is uneasy to see how
unskilfully its own family doctors treat the national disease.
Port Royal, South Carolina, taken. Great and general rejoicing. It is
a brilliant feat of arms, but a questionable military and war policy.
Those attacks on the circumference, or on extremities, never can
become a death-blow to secesh. The rebels must be crushed in the
focus; they ought to receive a blow at the heart. This new strategy
seems to indicate that McClellan has not heart enough to attack the
fastnesses of rebeldom, but expects that something may turn up from
these small expeditions. He expects to weaken the rebels in their
focus. I wish McClellan may be right in his expectations, but I doubt
it.
Officers of McClellan's staff tell that Mr. Lincoln almost daily comes
into McClellan's library, and sits there rather unnoticed. On several
occasions McClellan let the President wait in the room, together with
other common mortals.
The English statesmen and the English press have the notion deeply
rooted in their brains that the American people fight for empire. The
rebels do it, but not the free men.
Mr. Seward's emphatical prohibition to Mr. Adams to mention the
question of slavery may have contributed to strengthen in England the
above-mentioned fallacy. This is a blunder, which before long or short
Seward will repent. It looks like astuteness--_ruse_; but if so, it is
the resource of a rather limited mind. In great and minor affairs,
straightforwardness is the best policy. Loyalty always gets the better
of astuteness, and the more so when the opponent is unprepared to meet
it. Tricks can be well met by tricks, but tricks are impotent against
truth and sincerity. But Mr. Seward, unhappily, has spent his life in
various political tricks, and was surrounded by men whose intimacy
must have necessarily lowered and unhealthily affected him. All his
most intimates are unintellectual mediocrities or tricksters.
Seward is free from that infamous know-nothingism of which this Gen.
Thomas is the great master (a man every few weeks accused of treason
by the public opinion, and undoubtedly vibrating between loyalty here
and sympathy with rebels).
All this must have unavoidably vitiated Mr. Seward's better nature. In
such way only can I see plainly why so many excellent qualities are
marred in him. He at times can broadly comprehend things around him;
he is good-natured when not stung, and he is devoted to his men.
As a patriot, he is American to the core--were only his domestic
policy straightforward and decided, and would he only stop meddling
with the plans of the campaign, and let the War Department alone.
Since every part of his initiative with European cabinets failed,
Seward very skilfully dispatches all the minor affairs with
Europe--affairs generated by various maritime and international
complications. Were his domestic policy as correct as is now his
foreign policy, Seward would be the right man.
Statesmanship emerges from the collision of great principles with
important interests. In the great Revolution, the thus called fathers
of the nation were the offsprings of the exigencies of the time, and
they were fully up to their task. They were vigorous and fresh; their
intellect was not obstructed by any political routine, or by tricky
political praxis. Such men are now needed at the helm to carry this
noble people throughout the most terrible tempest. So in these days
one hears so much about constitutional formulas as safeguards of
liberty. True liberty is not to be virtually secured by any framework
of rules and limitations, devisable only by statecraft. The perennial
existence of liberty depends not on the action of any definite and
ascertainable machinery, but on continual accessions of fresh and
vital influences. But perhaps such influences are among the noblest,
and therefore among the rarest, attributes of man.
Abroad and here, traitors and some pedants on formulas make a noise
concerning the violation of formulas. Of course it were better if such
violations had been left undone. But all this is transient, and evoked
by the direst necessity. The Constitution was made for a healthy,
normal condition of the nation; the present condition is abnormal.
Regular functions are suspended. When the human body is ruined or
devoured by a violent disease, often very tonic remedies are
used--remedies which would destroy the organism if administered when
in a healthy, normal condition. A strong organism recovers from
disease, and from its treatment. Human societies and institutions pass
through a similar ordeal, and when they are unhinged, extraordinary
and abnormal ways are required to maintain the endangered society and
restore its equipoise.
Examining day after day the map of Virginia, it strikes one that a
movement with half of the army could be made down from Mount Vernon by
the two turnpike roads, and by water to Occoquan, and from there to
Brentsville. The country there seems to be flat, and not much wooded.
Manassas would be taken in the rear, and surrounded, provided the
other half of the army would push on by the direct way from here to
Manassas, and seriously attack the enemy, who thus would be broken,
could not escape. This, or any plan, the map of Virginia ought to
suggest to the staff of McClellan, were it a staff in the true
meaning. Dybitsch and Toll, young colonels in the staff of Alexander
I., 1813-'14, originated the march on Paris, so destructive to
Napoleon. History bristles with evidences how with staffs originated
many plans of battles and of campaigns; history explains the paramount
influence of staffs on the conduct of a war. Of course Napoleon wanted
not a suggestive, but only an executive staff; but McClellan is not a
Napoleon, and has neither a suggestive nor an executive staff around
him. A Marcy to suggest a plan of a campaign or of a battle, to watch
over its execution!
I spoke to McDowell about the positions of Occoquan and Brentsville.
He answered that perhaps something similar will be under
consideration, and that McClellan must show his mettle and capacity. I
pity McDowell's confidence.
Besides, the American army as it was and is educated, nursed, brought
up by Gen. Scott,--the army has no idea what are the various and
complicated duties of a staff. No school of staff at West Point;
therefore the difficulty to find now genuine officers of the staff.
If McClellan ever moves this army, then the defectiveness of his staff
may occasion losses and even disasters. It will be worse with his
staff than it was at Jena with the Prussian staff, who were as
conceited as the small West Point clique here in Washington.
West Point instructs well in special branches, but does not
necessarily form generals and captains. The great American Revolution
was fought and made victorious by men not from any military schools,
and to whom were opposed commanders with as much military science as
there was possessed and current in Europe. Jackson, Taylor, and even
Scott, are not from the school.
I do not wish to judge or disparage the pupils from West Point, but I
am disgusted with the supercilious and ridiculous behavior of the
clique here, ready to form praetorians or anything else, and poisoning
around them the public opinion. Western generals are West Point
pupils, but I do not hear them make so much fuss, and so
contemptuously look down on the volunteers. These Western generals
pine not after regulars, but make use of such elements as they have
under hand. The best and most patriotic generals and officers here,
educated at West Point, are numerous. Unhappily a clique, composed of
a few fools and fops, overshadows the others.
McClellan's speciality is engineering. It is a speciality which does
not form captains and generals for the field,--at least such instances
are very rare. Of all Napoleon's marshals and eminent commanders,
Berthier alone was educated as engineer, and his speciality and high
capacity was that of a chief of the staff. Marescott or Todleben would
never claim to be captains. The intellectual powers of an engineer are
modeled, drilled, turned towards the defensive,--the engineer's brains
concentrate upon selecting defensive positions, and combine how to
strengthen them by art. So an engineer is rather disabled from
embracing a whole battle-field, with its endless casualties and space.
Engineers are the incarnation of a defensive warfare; all others, as
artillerists, infantry, and cavalry, are for dashing into the
unknown--into the space; and thus these specialities virtually
represent the offensive warfare.
When will they begin to see through McClellan, and find out that he is
not the man? Perhaps too late, and then the nation will sorely feel
it.
Mr. Seward almost idolizes McClellan. Poor homage that; but it does
mischief by reason of its influence on the public opinion.