_Consummatum est!_ -- Will the outraged people avenge itself? --
McClellan satisfies the President -- After a year! -- The truth
will be throttled -- Public opinion in Europe begins to abandon
us -- The country marching to its tomb -- Hooker, Kearney,
Heintzelman, Sigel, brave and true men -- Supremacy of mind over
matter -- Stanton the last Roman -- Inauguration of the pretorian
regime -- Pope accuses three generals -- Investigation prevented
by McClellan -- McDowell sacrificed -- The country inundated with
lies -- The demoralized army declares for McClellan -- The
pretorians will soon finish with liberty -- Wilkes sent to the
West Indian waters -- Russia -- Mediation -- Invasion of Maryland
-- Strange story about Stanton -- Richmond never invested --
McClellan in search of the enemy -- Thirty miles in six days --
The telegrams -- Wadsworth -- Capitulation of Harper's Ferry --
Five days' fighting -- Brave Hooker wounded -- No results -- No
reports from McClellan -- Tactics of the Maryland campaign --
Nobody hurt in the staff -- Charmed lives -- Wadsworth, Judge
Conway, Wade, Boutwell, Andrew -- This most intelligent people
become the laughing-stock of the world! -- The proclamation of
emancipation -- Seward to the Paisley Association -- Future
complications -- If Hooker had not been wounded! -- The military
situation -- Sigel persecuted by West Point -- Three cheers for
the carriage and six! -- How the great captain was to catch the
rebel army -- Interview with the Chicago deputation -- Winter
quarters -- The conspiracy against Sigel -- Numbers of the rebel
army -- Letters of marque.
The intrigues, the insubordination of McClellan's pets, have almost
exclusively brought about the disasters at Manassas and at Bull Run,
and brought the country to the verge of the grave. But the people are
not to know the truth.
CONSUMMATUM EST! The people's honor is stained--the country's cause on
the verge of the grave. Will this outraged people avenge itself on the
four or five diggers?
Old as I am, I feel a more rending pain now than I felt thirty years
ago when Poland was entombed. Here are at stake the highest interests
of humanity, of progress, of civilization. I find no words to utter my
feelings; my mind staggers. It is filled with darkness, pain, and
blood.
Mr. Lincoln is the standard-bearer of the policy of the New York
Herald. So, before him, were Pierce and Buchanan.
It is said that General McClellan fully satisfied the President of his
(the General's) complete innocence as to the delays which exclusively
generated the last disasters; also Gen. McClellan has justified
himself on military grounds. I wish the verdict of innocence may be
uttered by a court-martial of European generals. At any rate, the
country was thrown into an abyss.
_After a year!_--One hundred thousand of the best, bravest, the most
devoted men slaughtered; hundreds and hundreds of millions squandered;
the army again in the entrenchments of Washington; everywhere the
defensive and losses; the enemy on the Potomac, perhaps to invade the
free States; but McClellan is in command, his headquarters as
brilliant and as numerous as a year ago; the mean flunkeys at their
post; only the country's life-blood pours in streams; but--that is of
no account.
No acids are so dissolving and so corrosive as is the air of
Washington on patriotism. How few resist its action! Among the few are
Stanton, Chase (a passive patriot), Wadsworth, Dahlgren, and those
grouping around Stanton; so is Welles; likewise Fox; but they are
powerless. Washington is likewise the greatest garroter of truth; and
I am sure that the truth about the last battles will be throttled and
never elucidated.
_September 3._--The Cabinets of France and of England will have a very
hard stand to resist the pressure of public opinion, carried away by
the skill and by the plausible heroism of the rebels. Public opinion
will be clamorous that something be done in favor of the rebels.
Happily, nothing else can be done but a war, and this saves us. But if
the rebels succeed without Europe, the more glory for their chiefs,
the more ignominy for ours. Public opinion begins to abandon us in
Europe. Already I have explained some of the reasons for it.
The country is marching to its tomb, but the grave-diggers will not
confess their crime and their utter incapacity to save it. This their
stubbornness is even a greater crime. Will Halleck warn the country
against McClellan's incapacity?
We have such generals as Hooker, Heintzelman, Kearney, etc., who
fought continually, and with odds against them, and who never were
worsted. Those three, among the best of the army, fought under Pope
and mutineered not. In any other country such men would receive large,
even the superior command; here the palm belongs to the incapable,
the _slow_, and to the flatterer. The same with Sigel. His corps is
reduced to 6,000 men; common sense shows that he ought to have at
least 25,000 under him. Sigel begged the President to have more men;
the President sent him to Halleck and McClellan, who both snubbed him
off. By my prayer Sigel, although disheartened, went to Stanton, who
received him friendly and warmly, and promised to do his utmost.
Stanton will keep his word, if only the West Point envy will not
prevent him.
Hooker, Kearney, and Heintzelman were not in favor at the headquarters
in the Peninsula, and their commands have been continually
disorganized in favor of the pets of the Commander-in-Chief. The
country knows what the three braves did since Yorktown down to the
last day--the country knows that at the last disasters at Bull Run
these heroic generals did their fullest duty. But not even their
advice is asked at the double headquarters. Stanton alone cannot do
everything. Rats may devour a Hercules.
It seems certain that the rebel generals have various foreign officers
in their respective staffs. The rebels wish to assure the success of
their cause; here many have only in view their personal success. The
President, although not a Blucher, may make a Gneisenau out of Sigel,
who has in view only the success of the cause, and no prospects
towards the White House. Sigel would understand how to organize a
genuine staff.
Most of the foreigners who came to serve here came with the intention
to fight for the sacred principle of freedom, and without any further
views whatever of career and aggrandizement. In this respect Americans
are not just towards these foreigners, and the great men at
headquarters will prefer to see all go to pieces than to use the
capacity of foreigners, above all in the artillery and for the staff
duties.
The mind--that is, Jeff. Davis, Jackson, Lee, etc.--has the best of
the matter--that is, Lincoln, McClellan, Blair, and Seward; however,
these positions are reversed when one considers the masses on both
sides. But on our side the matter commands and presses down the mind;
on the rebel side the mind of the chiefs vivifies, exalts, attracts,
and directs the matter. And the results thereof are, that not the
rebellion, but the North, is shaking.
As _a_, not only as _the_ President, Mr. Lincoln represents nothing
beyond the unavoidable constitutional formula. For all other purposes,
as an acting, directing, inspiring, or combining power or agency, Mr.
Lincoln becomes a myth. His reality is only manifested by preserving
slavery, by sticking to McClellan, by distributing offices, by
receiving inspirations from Mr. Seward, and by digging the country's
grave. So it is from March 4, 1861, up to this, September 5th, 1862.
What else Mr. Lincoln may eventually incarnate is not now perceptible.
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward piloted the country among breakers and
rocks, from which to extricate the country requires a man who is to be
the burning focus of the whole people's soul.
Other nations at times reached the bottom of an abyss, and they came
up again when from the tempest rending them emerged such a savior. But
here the formula may render impossible the appearance of such a
savior. The formula is the nation's hearse. The formula has
neutralized the best men in Congress, the best men in the Cabinet, as
is Stanton.
The people have decided not, _propter vitam vivendi perdere causas_;
but the various formulas, the schemers, the grave-diggers, and the
aspirants for the White House, think differently.
The almost daily changes made by Mr. Lincoln in the command of the
forces are the best evidences of his good-intentioned--debility.
Harmony belongs to the primordial laws of nature; it is the same for
human societies. But here no harmony exists between the purest, the
noblest, and the most patriotic portion of the people, and the
official exponent of the people's will, and of its higher and purer
aspirations. So here all jars dissonantly; all is confusion, because
avenged must be every violation of nature's law.
I cannot believe that at this deadly crisis the salvation can come
from Washington. The best man here has not his free action. And the
rest of them are the country's curse. Mr. Lincoln, with McClellan,
Seward, Blair, Halleck, and scores of such, are as able to cope with
this crisis as to stop the revolution of our planet.
_Up to this day_, from among those foremost, the only man whose hands
remain unstained with the country's, his mother's, and his brethren's
blood, the last Roman, is Stanton.
_September 7._--During last night troops marched to meet the enemy,
saluting with deafening shouts and cheers the residence of McClellan;
spit-lickers as a Kennedy, giving the sign by waving his hat. Such
shouts would cheer up the mind but for the fact that they were mostly
raised for the victory over those who demanded an investigation of the
causes of _slowness_ and insubordination,--those exclusive causes of
the defeat of Pope's army. Those shouts were thrown out as defiance to
justice, to truth, and to law. Those shouts marked the inauguration of
the _pretorian regime_. General McClellan and other generals have
forced the President to _postpone_ the investigation into the conduct
of the _slow_ and of the insubordinate generals, all three special
favorites of McClellan. General McClellan appeared before the soldiers
surrounded by his _old identical staff_, by a tross of flatterers,
and, Oh heavens! in the cortege Senator Wilson! Oh, _sancta_ not
_simplicitas_, but ---- Oh, clear-sighted Republican!
Subsequently, I learned that Senator Wilson was present for a moment,
and only by a pure accident, at that ovation.
_Laeszt Dich dem Teufel bey'm Haare packen, so hat Er Dich bey'm
Kopfe_, says Lessing, and so it may become here with this first
success of the pretorians, or even worse than pretorians; these here
are Yanitschars of a Sultan.
Pope and his army accuse three generals of insubordination and mutiny
on the field of battle. McClellan prevents investigation; the brutal
rule of Yanitschars is inaugurated, thanks to you, Messrs. Seward and
Blair.
McDowell sacrificed to the Yanitschars; he is the scapegoat and the
victim to popular fallacy, to the imbecility of the press, and, above
all, to the intriguers and to the conspiracy of the mutinous pets of
McClellan. Weeks and weeks ago, I foretold to McDowell that such would
be his fate, and that only in after-times history will be just towards
him.
The country begins to be inundated and opinion poisoned by all kinds
of the most glaring lies, invented and spread by the staffs, and the
imbecile, blind partisans of McClellan. Here are some from among the
lies.
In January (oh hear, oh hear!) General McClellan with 50,000 men
intended to make a _flying_ (oh hear, oh hear!) expedition to
Richmond, but Lincoln and Stanton opposed it. This lie divides itself
into two points. 1st lie. In January, nobody opposed General
McClellan's will, and, besides, he was sick. 2d lie. If he was so
pugnacious in January, why has he not made with the same number of men
a flying expedition only to Centreville, right under his nose?
Emanating from the staff, such a lie is sufficient to show the
military capacity of those who concocted it.
Second lie. That the expedition to Yorktown and the Peninsula strategy
were forced upon McClellan. I hope that the Americans have enough
memory left, and enough self-respect to recollect the truth.
Further, the above staff asserts that, when the truth will be known
about the campaign, and the fightings in the Chickahominy, then
justice will be done to McClellan.
Always and everywhere lost battles, bad and ignorant generalship,
require explanations, justifications, and commentaries. Well-fought
battles are justified on the spot, the same day, and by results. No
one asks or makes comments upon the fighting of Jackson. Austerlitz,
Jena, were commented on, explained, some of the chiefs were justified,
but--by Austrian and Prussian commentators.
Until to-day French writers discuss, analyze, and comment upon the
fatal battle of Waterloo. At Waterloo Napoleon was in the square of
his heroic guards; but during the seven days' fighting on the
Chickahominy, what regiment, not to say a square, saw in its midst the
American Napoleon?
A thousand others, similar to the above-mentioned lies, will be or are
already circulated; the mass of the people will use its common sense,
and the lies must perish.
On September 7th, Gen. McClellan gave his word to the President to
start to the army at 12 o'clock, but started at 4 P. M. with a long
train of well-packed wagons for himself and for his staff. To be
sure, Lee, Jackson, and all the other rebel chiefs together, have not
such a train; if they had, they would not be to-day on the Potomac and
in Maryland. Most certainly those quick-moving rebels start at least
an hour earlier than they are expected to do.
_September 9._--Up to this day Mr. Lincoln ought to have discovered
whose advice transformed him into a standard-bearer of the policy of
the New York Herald, and made him push the country to the verge of the
grave; and, nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln is deaf to the voice of all true
and pure patriots who point out the malefactors.
Secondary events; as a lost battle, etc., depend upon material causes;
but such primordial events as is the thorough miscarriage of Mr.
Lincoln's anti-rebellion policy,--such events are generated by moral
causes.
Jefferson Davis, Lee, Jackson, and all the generals down to the last
Southern bush-whacker, incarnate the violent and hideous passion of
slavery, now all-powerful throughout the South. Here, Lincoln, Seward,
McClellan, Blair, Halleck, etc., incarnate the negation of the purest
and noblest aspirations of the North. Stanton alone is inspired by a
national patriotic idea. No unity, no harmony between the people and
the leaders; this discord must generate disasters.
All over the country the lie is spread that the army demanded the
reappointment of McClellan. First, the three mutinous generals did it;
but not a Kearney, the Bayard of America; very likely not Hooker and
Heintzelman--all of them soldiers, patriots, and men of honor; nor
very likely was it demanded by Keyes. I do not know positively what
was the conduct of Gen. Sumner. Gen. Burnside owes what he is, glory
and all, to McClellan. Burnside's honest gratitude and honest want of
judgment have contributed more than anything else to inaugurate the
regime of the pretorians, to justify mutiny. Halleck's conduct in all
this is veiled in mystery; it is so at least for the present; and as
truth will be kept out of sight, the country may never know the truth
about those shameful proceedings.
I learn that Heintzelman, against his own judgment, agreed in the
McClellan movement. Well, if this is true, then, of course, the army,
for a long time misled by uninterrupted intrigues, misled by papers
such as the New York Herald and the Times,--the army or the soldiers
mightily contributed to bring about this fatal crisis. An army
composed of intelligent Americans, blinded, stultified by intriguers,
declares for a general who never, up to this day, covered with glory
his or the army's name. After this nothing more is to be expected, and
no disaster on the field of battle, no dissolution of a national
principle, can astonish my mind. Cursed be those who thus demoralized
the sound judgment of the soldiers! Cursed be my personal experience
of men and of things which makes me despair! But when an army or
soldiers become intellectually brought down to such a standard, then
the holiest cause will always be lost. Oh for a man to save the cause
of humanity! But if even such a man should appear, these pretorians
will turn against him.
The pretorians, with the New York Herald as their flag, will soon
finish with liberty at home. McClellan, Barlow, the brothers Wood, and
Bennett, may very soon be at the helm, with the 100,000 pretorians for
support. _Similia similibus_; and here disgrace is to cure disgrace.
These helpless grave-diggers, above all, Seward, are on the way to
pick a quarrel with England, sending a flying gunboat fleet under
Wilkes into the West Indian waters. At this precise moment it were
better to be very cautious, and rather watch strongly our coasts with
the same gunboats.
_September 11._--A military genius at once finds out the point where
blows are to be struck, and strikes them with lightning-like speed.
The rebels act in this manner; but what point was found out, what
blows were ever dealt by McClellan?
Individuals similar to McClellan were idolized by the Roman
pretorians, and this idolatry marks the epoch of the utmost
demoralization and degradation of the Roman empire. Witnessing such a
phenomenon in an army of American volunteers, one must give up in
despair any confidence in manhood and in common sense.
The Journal of St. Petersburg of August 6th semi-officially refutes
the insinuations that Russia intends to recognize the South, or to
unite with France and England for any such purpose, or for mediation.
The language of the article is noble and friendly, as is all which up
to this day has been done by Alexander II. Mr. Stoeckl, the Russian
minister here, considerably contributes that such sound and friendly
views on the condition of our affairs are entertained by the Russian
Cabinet.
_September 11._--Imbeciles agitate the question of mediation. European
cabinets will not offer it now, and nobody, not even the rebels, would
accept. No possible terms and basis exist for any mediation. A Solomon
could not find them out. If Jackson and Lee were to shell Washington,
then only the foreign ministers may be requested to step in and to
settle the terms of a capitulation or of an evacuation. The foreign
ministers here could act as mediators only if asked; not otherwise. I
am sure it will come out that the invasion of Maryland by the rebels
is made under the pressure exercised in Richmond by the Maryland
chivalry in the service of the rebellion. These runaways probably
promised an insurrection in Maryland, provided a rebel force crosses
the Potomac. (Wrote it to England.)
All around helplessness and confusion. Conscientiously I make all
possible efforts to record what I believe to be true, and then truth
will take care of herself.
After the study of the campaigns of Frederick II., above all, after
the study of those marvellous campaigns, combinations, manoeuvres of
Napoleon, to witness every day the combinations of McClellan is more
disgusting, more nauseous for the mind, than can be for the stomach
the strongest dose of emetic.
The last catastrophe at Bull Run and at Manassas has a slight
resemblance with the catastrophe at Waterloo. The conduct of the
mutinous generals here is similar to the conduct of some of the French
generals during the battle of Ligny and Quatre-Bras. But here was
mutiny, and there demoralization produced by general and deeply rooted
and fatally unavoidable causes. The demoralization of the French
generals came at the end of a terrible epoch of struggles and
sacrifices, of material exhaustion, when the faith in the destinies of
Napoleon was extinct; here mutiny and demoralization seize upon the
newly-born era.
_September 13._--What a good-natured people are the Americans! A
regiment of Pennsylvania infantry quartered for the night on the
sidewalk of the streets; officers, of course, absent; the poor
soldiers stretched on the stones, when so many empty large buildings,
when the empty (intellectually and materially empty) White House could
have given to the soldiers comfortable night quarters. It can give an
idea how they treat the soldiers in the field, if here in Washington
they care so little for them. But McClellan has forty wagons for his
staff, and forty ambulances--no danger for the latter to be used. In
European armies aristocratic officers would not dare to treat soldiers
in this way--to throw them on the pavement without any necessity.
More than once in my life, after heavy fighting, I laid down the
knapsack for a cushion, snow for a mattrass and for a blanket; but by
the side of the soldiers, the generals, the staffs, and the officers
shared similar bedsteads.
I hear strange stories about Stanton, and about his having ruefully
fallen in McClellan's lap. If so, then one more _man_, one more
illusion, and one more creed in manhood gone overboard, drowned in
meanness, in moral cowardice, and subserviency.
The worshippers of strategy and of Gen. McClellan try to make the
public swallow, that the investment of Richmond by him was a
magnificent display of science, and would have been a success but for
50,000 more men under his command.
To invest any place whatever is to cut that place from the principal,
if not from all communications with the country around, and thus
prevent, or make dangerous or difficult, the arrival of provisions, of
support, etc.
Our gunboats, etc., in the York and the James rivers have virtually
invested Richmond on the eastern side; but that part of the Peninsula
did not constitute the great source of life for the rebel army. The
principal life-arteries for Richmond ran through four-fifths of a
circle, beginning from the southern banks of the James river and
running to the southern banks of the Rapidan and of the Rappahannock.
Through that region men, material, provisions poured into Richmond
from the whole South, and that whole region around Richmond was left
perfectly open; but strategy concentrated its wisdom on the
comparatively indifferent eastern side of the Chickahominy marshes,
and cut off the rebels from--nothing at all.
_September 13._--General McClellan, in search of the enemy, during the
first six days makes thirty miles! Finds the enemy near Hagerstown. No
more time for strategy.
_September 14._--General McClellan telegraphs to General Halleck
(_meliores ambo_) that he, McClellan, has "_the most reliable
information that the enemy is 190,000 strong in Maryland and in
Pennsylvania, besides 70,000 on the other side of the Potomac_." (The
same bosh about the numbers as in the Peninsula.)
The Generals Burnside, Hooker, Sumner, Reno, fought the battle at
Hagerstown, and drove the enemy before them. General McClellan reports
a victory, _but expects the enemy to renew the fighting next day in a
considerable force_--(as at Williamsburg). McClellan telegraphs to
Halleck, "_Look for an attack on Washington._" The enemy retreats to
recross the Potomac!
_September 15._--General Wadsworth suggested to the President one of
those bold movements by which campaigns are terminated by one blow:
"To send Heintzelman and him, Wadsworth, with some 25,000 men, to
Gordonsville (here and in Baltimore about 90,000 men), and thus cut
off the enemy from Richmond, and prevent him from rallying his
forces." But General Halleck opposes such a Murat's dash, on account
of McClellan's "looked-for attack on Washington"--by his,
McClellan's, imagination.
_September 17._--When I wrote the above about Wadsworth and
Heintzelman, I was under the impression that the victory announced by
McClellan, Sept. 14, was more decisive; that as he had fresh the whole
corps of Fitz John Porter, and the greatest part of that of Franklin,
and other supports sent him from Washington, he would give no respite
to the enemy, and push him into the Potomac. It turned out
differently.
The loss by capitulation of Harper's Ferry. It is a blow to us, and
very likely a disgraceful affair, not for the soldiers, but for the
commanders.
_September 19._--Five days' fighting. Our brave Hooker wounded;
tremendous loss of life on both sides, and no decisive results. These
last battles, and those on the Chickahominy, that of Shiloh, in one
word all the fightings protracted throughout several consecutive days,
are almost unexampled in history. These horrible episodes establish
the bravery, the endurance of the soldiers, the bravery and the
ability of some among the commanders of the corps, of the divisions,
etc., and the absence of any _generalship in the commander_.
_September 20._--Until this day Gen. McClellan has not published one
single detailed report about any of his operations since the
evacuation of Manassas in March. Thus much for the staff of the army
of the Potomac. We shall see what detailed report he will publish of
the campaign in Maryland. McClellan's bulletins from Maryland are
twins to his bulletins from the Peninsula; and there may be very
little difference between the _gained_ victories. To-day he is
ignorant of the movements of the enemy, and has more than 30,000 fresh
troops in hand.
As in the Peninsula, so in Maryland. Although having nearly one-third
more men than the enemy, General McClellan never forced the enemy to
engage at once its whole force, never attacked the rebels on their
whole line, and never had any positive notion about the number and the
position of the opposing forces.
The rebels had the Potomac in their rear; our army pressed them in
front, and--the rebels escaped.
I appeal to such military heroes as Hooker; I appeal to thousands of
our brave soldiers, from generals down to the rank and file, and
further I appeal to all women with hearts and brains here and in
Europe.
_September 20._--Gen. Mansfield killed at the head of his brigade. I
ask his forgiveness for all the criticism made upon him in this diary.
Last year, at the beginning of the war, Gen. Mansfield acted under the
orders of Gen. Scott. This explains all.
As in the slaughters of the Chickahominy, so in the Maryland
slaughters, _nobody hurt_ in McClellan's numerous staff. Thank Heaven!
Not only his life is charmed, but the charm extends over all who
surround him,--men and beasts.
A malediction sticks to our cause. Hooker badly, very badly wounded.
Hooker fought the greatest number of fights,--was never worsted in the
Peninsula, nor in the August disasters, and he alone has the supreme
honor of a nick-name, by the troopers' baptism: the _Fighting Joe_.
Hooker, not McClellan, ought to command the army. But no pestilential
Washington clique, none of the West-Pointers, back him, and the pets,
the pretorians, may have refused to obey his orders.
After the escape of the rebels from Manassas in March, and after the
evacuation of Yorktown, all the intriguers and traitors grouped around
the New York Herald, and the imbeciles around the New York Times,
prized high _the masterly strategy_ and its bloodless victories. Now,
in dead, by powder and disease, in crippled, etc., McClellan destroyed
about 100,000 men, and the country's honor is bleeding, the country's
cause is on the verge of a precipice.
How rare are men of civic heroism, of fearless civic courage; men of
the creed: _perisse mon nom mais que la patrie soit sauvee._
General Wadsworth feels more deeply and more painfully the disasters,
nay, the disgrace, of the country, than do almost all with whom I meet
here. During the Congress, similar were the feelings of Senator Wade,
Judge Potter, and of many other Congressmen in both the Houses. So
feel Boutwell, Andrew, the Governor of Massachusetts, and I am sure
many, many over the country. But the sensation-men and preachers,
lecturers, etc., all are to be * * * *
_September 22._--By Mr. Seward's policy and by McClellan's strategy
and war-bulletins the bravest and the most intelligent people became
the laughing-stock of Europe and of the world. And thus is witnessed
the hitherto in history unexampled phenomenon of a devoted and brave
people of twenty millions, mastering all the wealth and the resources
of modern civilization, worsted and kept at bay by four to five
million rebels, likewise brave, but almost beggared, and cut off from
all external communications.
_Sept. 23._--Proclamation _conditionally_ abolishing slavery from
1863. The _conditional_ is the last desperate effort made by Mr.
Lincoln and by Mr. Seward to save slavery. Poor Mr. Lincoln was
obliged to strike such a blow at his _mammy_! The two statesmen found
out that it was dangerous longer to resist the decided, authoritative
will of the masses. The words "resign," "depose," "impeach," were more
and more distinct in the popular murmur, and the proclamation was
issued.
Very little, if any, credit is due to Mr. Lincoln or to Mr. Seward for
having thus late and reluctantly _legalized_ the stern will of the
immense majority of the American people. For the sake of sacred truth
and justice I protest before civilization, humanity, and posterity,
that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward intrinsically are wholly innocent of
this great satisfaction given to the right, and to national honor.
The absurdity of colonization is preserved in the proclamation. How
could it have been otherwise?
But if the rebellion is crushed before January 1st, 1863, what then?
If the rebels turn loyal before that term? Then the people of the
North will be cheated. Happily for humanity and for national honor,
Mr. Lincoln's and Mr. Seward's benevolent expectations will be
baffled; the rebels will spurn the tenderly proffered leniency; these
rebels are so ungrateful towards those who "cover the weakness of the
insurgents," &c. (See the celebrated, and by the American press much
admired, despatch in May or June, 1862, Seward to Adams.)
The proclamation is written in the meanest and the most dry routine
style; not a word to evoke a generous thrill, not a word reflecting
the warm and lofty comprehension and feelings of the immense majority
of the people on this question of emancipation. Nothing for humanity,
nothing to humanity. Whoever drew it, be he Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Seward,
it is clear that the writer was not in it either with his heart or
with his soul; it is clear that it was done under moral duress, under
the throttling pressure of events. How differently Stanton would have
spoken!
General Wadsworth truly says, that never a noble subject was more
belittled by the form in which it was uttered.
Brazilian m----s are much disturbed by the proclamation.
_Sept. 23._--In his answer to the Paisley Parliamentary Reform
Association, Mr. Seward complains that the sympathy of Europe turns
now for secession.
O Mr. Seward, Mr. Seward, who is it that contributed to turn the
current against the cause of right and of humanity? Months ago I and
others warned you; the premonitory signs and the reasons of this
change have been pointed out to you. Now you slander Europe, of which
you know as little as of the inhabitants of the moon. The generous
populations of the whole of Europe expected and waited for a positive,
unhesitating, clear recognition of human rights; day after day the
generous European minds expected to see some positive, authoritative
fact confirm that lofty conception which, at the start of this
rebellion, they had of the cause of the North. But the pure, generous
tendencies of the American people became officially, authoritatively
misrepresented; the public opinion in Europe became stuffed with empty
generalizations, with official but unfulfilled prophecies, and with
cold declamations. Those official generalizations, prophecies, and
declamations, the supineness shown by the administration in the
recognition of human rights, all this began to be considered in Europe
as being sanctioned by the whole American people; and generous
European hearts and minds began to avert in disgust from the
_misrepresented_ cause of the North.
Two issues are before history, before the philosophy of history, and
before the social progress of our race. The first issue is the
struggle between the pure democratic spirit embodied in the Free
States, and the fetid remains of the worst part of humanity embodied
in the South. The second issue is between the perennial vitality of
the principle of self-government in the people, and the transient and
accidental results of the self-government as manifested in Mr.
Lincoln, in Mr. Seward, and their followers. I hope that this Diary
will throw some light on the second issue, and vindicate the perennial
against the transient and the accidental.
_Sept. 24._--If the events of this war should progress as they are
foreshadowed in the proclamation of September 22, then the application
of this proclamation may create inextricable complications. Not only
in one and the same State, but in one and the same district, nay, even
in the same township, after January 1st, 1863, may be found
Africo-Americans, portions of whom are emancipated, the others in
bondage. But the stern logic of events will save the illogical,
pusillanimous, confused half-measure, as it now is. (O Steffens!)
General McClellan confesses that if Hooker had not been wounded, then
_the road_, by which the retreat of the rebels might have been cut
off, would have been taken. Such a declaration is the most emphatic
recognition of Hooker's superior military capacity. Seldom, however,
has the loss of a general commanding only _en second_, or a wing, as
did Hooker, decided the fortunes of the day. Why did not McClellan
take _the road_ himself, after Hooker was obliged to leave the field?
When Desaix, Bessieres, and Lannes fell, Napoleon nevertheless won
the respective battles.
_Sept. 25._--The military position of the rebels in Winchester seems
to me one of the best they ever held in this war. Winchester is the
centre of which Washington, Harper's Ferry, Williamsport, nay, even
Wheeling, seem to be the circumference. Our army under McClellan is
almost beyond the circle, crosses not the Potomac, and is now only to
watch the enemy. So much for the great McClellan's victory. Truly, the
enemy may be taken in the rear, its communications with Richmond, &c.,
cut off and destroyed; but _we are safe_ on the Potomac, and this is
sufficient. McClellan is _the man of large conceptions and rapid
execution_. The best generals are _hors de combat_; as to Halleck, O,
it is not to think, not to speak. Well, I may be mistaken, but I
clearly see all this on the map of Virginia.
_Sept. 25._--The West Point spirit persecutes Sigel with the utmost
rage. The West Point spirit seemingly wishes to have Sigel dishonored,
defeated, even if the country be thereby destroyed. The Hallecks, &c.,
keep him in a subordinate position; _three days ago_ his corps was a
little over seven thousand, almost no cavalry, and most of the
artillery without horses, and he in front.
The more I scrutinize the President's thus called emancipation
proclamation, the more cunning and less good will and sincerity I find
therein. I hope I am mistaken. But the proclamation is only an act of
the military power,--is evoked by military necessity,--and not a
civil, social, humane act of justice and equity.
The only good to be derived from this proclamation is, that for the
first time the word _freedom_, and a general comprehension of
"emancipation," appear in an official act under the sanction of the
formula, and are inaugurated into the official, the constitutional
life of the nation. In itself it is therefore a great event for a
people so strictly attached to legality and to formulas.
I do not recollect to have read in the history of any great, or even
of a small captain,--above all of such a one when between thirty-four
and thirty-six years old,--that he followed the army under his command
in a travelling carriage and six, when the field of operations
extended from fifty to seventy miles. Three cheers for McClellan, for
his carriage and six!
HOW THE GREAT CAPTAIN WAS TO CATCH THE WHOLE REBEL ARMY IN
MANASSAS, IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH, A. D. 1862.
It was to have been done by a brilliant and unsurpassable stroke of
combined strategy, tactics, manoeuvres, marches, and swimmings; also
on land and water. (O, hear! O, hear!)
As every body knows, the rebels were encamped in the so _fearful_
strongholds of Centreville and Manassas, all the time fooling the
commander-in-chief of the federal army in relation to their _immense_
numbers. To attack the rebels in front, or to surround them by the
Occoquan and Brentsville, would have been a too--simple operation; by
a special, an immense, space-embracing anaconda strategy, the rebel
army was to be cut off from the whole of rebeldom, and forced to
surrender _en masse_ to the inventor of (the not yet patented, I hope)
bloodless victories. To accomplish such an immense result, a fleet of
transports was already ordered to be gathered at Annapolis. On them in
ten or fifteen days (O, hear!) an army of fifty to sixty thousand,
most completely equipped, was to be embarked, plus forty thousand in
Washington, all this to sail under the personal command of the
general-in-chief, and sail towards Richmond. Richmond taken, the rebel
army at Manassas would have been cut off, and obliged to surrender on
any terms.
The above splendid conception was, and still is, peddled among the
army and among the nation by the admirers of, and the devotees of,
anaconda strategy.
The expedition was to land at the mouth of the Tappahannock, a small
port, or rather a creek, used for shipping of a small quantity of
tobacco. As the port or creek has only some small attempts at wharves,
the landing of such an enormous army, with parks of artillery, with
cavalry, pontoons, and material for constructing bridges,--the landing
would not have been executed in weeks, if in months; but the projector
of the plan, perfectly losing the notion of time, calculated for ten
days. From that port the _flying_ expedition was to march directly on
Richmond through a country having only common field and dirt roads,
and this in a season when all roads generally are in an impassable
condition, through a country intersected by marshy streams, principal
among them the Matapony and the Pamunkey--to march towards Richmond
and the Chickahominy marshes. It seems that Chickahominy exercised an
attractive, Armida-like charm on the great strategian. An army loaded
with such immense trains would have sufficiently destroyed all the
roads, and rendered them impassable for itself; and the _flying_
expedition would at once have been transformed into an expedition
sticking in the mud, similar to that subsequent in the peninsula. The
enemy was in possession of Fredericksburg and of the railroad to
Hanover Court House on one flank, and of all the best roads north of
and through Chickahominy marshes on the other flank. The _flying_
expedition would have had for base Tappahannock and a dirt road. O
strategy! O stuff!
The much-persecuted General McDowell exposed the worse than crudity of
the brilliant conception. By doing this, McDowell saved the country,
the administration, and the strategian from immense losses and from a
nameless shame. It is due to the people that the administration lay
before the public the scheme and the refutation. A look on the map of
Virginia must convince even the simplest mind of the brilliancy of
this conception.
During all this time spent in such masterly operations, the rebel army
in Manassas was to quietly look on, to wait, and not move, not
retreat on Richmond. Early in March, at once the rebel army, always
undisturbed, quietly disappeared from Manassas; and this is the best
evidence of the depth of that brilliant combination, peddled under the
name of the _flying expedition to Richmond_, projected for January,
February, or March. I appeal to the verdict of sound reason; the
parties are, common sense _versus_ anaconda strategy and bloodless
victories.
_Sept. 27._--The proclamation issued by the war power of the President
is not yet officially notified to those who alone are to execute
it--the armies and their respective commanders. Who is to be taken in?
The papers publish a detailed account of an interview between the
President and an anti-slavery deputation from Chicago. The deputation
asked for stringent measures in the spirit of the law of Congress,
which orders the emancipation of the slaves held by the rebels. The
President combated the reasons alleged by the deputation, and tried to
establish the danger and the inefficiency of the measure. A few days
after the above-mentioned debate, the President issued the
proclamation of September 22. Are his heart, his soul, and his
convictions to be looked for in the debate, or in the proclamation?
The immense majority of the people, from the inmost of its heart,
greets the proclamation--a proof how deeply and ardently was felt its
necessity. The gratitude shown to Mr. Lincoln for having thus executed
the will of his master,--this gratitude is the best evidence how this
whole people is better, has a loftier comprehension of right and duty,
than have its elected servants.
McClellan already speaks that the campaign is finished, and the army
is to go into winter quarters. If the people, if the administration,
and if the army will stand this, then they will justly deserve the
scorn of the whole civilized and uncivilized world. But with such
civil and military chiefs all is possible, all may be expected to be
included in their programme of--vigorous operations.
_Sept. 28._--For some weeks I watch a conspiracy of the West Pointers,
of the commanders-in-chief, of the staffs, and of the double
know-nothing cliques united against Sigel. The aim seems to be to put
Sigel and his purposely-reduced and disorganized forces in such a
condition and position that he may be worsted or destroyed by the
enemy. To avoid dishonoring the forces under him, to avoid exposing
them to slaughter, and to avoid being thus himself dishonored, Sigel
ought to resign, and make public the reasons of his resignation. A few
days ago, I wrote and warned the Evening Post; but--but--
The Richmond papers confirm what I supposed concerning the motives
which pushed the rebel army across the Potomac. As the Marylanders
rose not in arms, and joined not the rebel army, the invaders had
nothing else to do but to retreat and to recross the Potomac.
McClellan ought to have thrown them into the river, which Hooker, if
not wounded, would have done, or if he had the command of our army.
The rebels would have retreated into Virginia, even without being
attacked by McClellan, even if he only followed them, say at one day's
distance. Not having destroyed the rebels, McClellan, in reality, and
from the military stand point, accomplished very little--near to
nothing. Hooker estimates the rebel force, at the utmost, at eighty
thousand men, and that is all that they could have. McClellan had
about one hundred and twenty thousand. And--and he is to be considered
the savior of Maryland and of Pennsylvania. O, good American people!
The genuine Napoleon won all his great battles against armies which
considerably outnumbered his.
Mr. Seward menaces England with issuing _letters of marque_ against
the Southern privateers. The menace is ridiculous, because it will not
be carried out, and, if carried out, it will become still more
ridiculous; it would be a very poor compliment to the navy to use the
whole power of private enterprise against a few rovers, and it would
be an official recognition of the rebels in the condition of
belligerents. _Quousque tandem_--O SEWARD--_abutere patientiam
nostram?_
_Sept. 30._--Nearly three weeks after the battle of Antietam, General
McClellan publishes what he and they call a report of his operations
in Maryland; in all not twenty lines, and devoted principally to
establish--on probabilities--the numerical losses of the enemy. The
report is a fit _pendant_ to his bulletins; is excellent for bunkum,
and to make other people justly laugh at us.