President's Message -- Political position -- Fredericksburgh --
Fog -- Accident -- Crisis in the Cabinet -- Secretary Chase --
Burnside -- Halleck -- the Butchers -- The Lickspittle Republican
Press -- War Committee patriots -- Youth -- People -- Ring out.
Grammarians may criticize the syntax of the President's message, and
the style. It reads uneasy, forced, tortuous, and it declares that
it is _impossible_ to subdue the rebels by force of arms. Of course
it is impossible with Lincoln for President, and first McClellan
and then Halleck to counterfeit the parts of the first Napoleon, and
the at once energetic and scientific Carnot. Were the great heart of
THE PEOPLE left to itself, it would be very _possible_ and even
quite easily _possible_.
The message is written with an eye turned towards the Democrats;
they are to be satisfied with the prospect of a convention. Seward
puts lies into Lincoln's pen, in relation to foreign nations. But
all is well, in the judgment of our _Great Statesmen_. Even the poor
logic is, according to them, quite admirable.
Contrariwise, Stanton's report corresponds to the height and the
gravity of events, and is worthy alike of the writer, and of the
people to whom it is addressed.
_Dec. 6._--Nearly four weeks the campaign has been opened; the enemy
adds fortifications to fortifications before the very eyes of our
army, yet nothing has been done towards preventing the rebels from
working upon the formidable strongholds.
Does Halleck-Burnside intend to wait until the rebels shall be
thoroughly prepared to repel any attack that may be made upon them?
Either there is foul play going on, or there is stupendous
stupidity pervading the entire management. But no one sees it, or
rather few, if any, wish to see it. Stanton, I am quite sure, has
nothing to do with the special plans of this enterprise. All is
planned and ruled by Lincoln, Halleck and Burnside.
_Dec. 7._--The political situation to-day, may be summarily stated
as follows: the Republicans are confused by recent electoral
defeats, and by the administrative and governmental helplessness, as
exhibited every day by their leaders; the Democrats, flushed with
success, display an unusual activity in evil doing, and are risking
everything to preserve Slavery and the South from destruction. I
speak of the Simon-pure Democrats, _alias_ Copperheads, such as the
Woods, the Seymours, the Vallandighams, the Coxes, the Biddles, &c.
The Sewards and the Weeds are ready for a compromise. The masses of
the people, staggered by all this bewildering turmoil and impure
factiousness, are nevertheless, stubbornly determined to persevere
and to succeed in saving their country.
_Dec. 7._--The European wiseacres, the would-be statesmen, whether
in or out of power, especially in England, and that opprobrium of
our century, the English and the Franco-Bonapartist press, have
decided to do all that their clever brains can scheme towards
preventing this noble American people from working out its mighty
and beneficent destinies, and from elaborating and making more
glorious than ever its own already very glorious history. As well
might the brainless and heartless conspirators against human
progress and human liberty endeavor to arrest the rotation of a
planet by the stroke of a pickaxe.
Ah! Mr. _Decembriseur_, with your base crew of lickspittles, your
pigmy, though treacherous efforts, even contending with those of the
English enemies of light, and of right, your common hatred of
Freedom and Freemen will end in being the destruction of yourself.
_Dec. 7._--Burnside complains of the manner in which he is
victimised, and explains his inactivity by the fact that the War
Department neglected to furnish him with the necessary pontoons.
How, in fact, was Burnside to move a great army without pontoons?
But it was the duty of Halleck, and his lazy or incompetent, or
traitorous staff, to have seen to the sending on of the pontoons.
However, supposing Burnside and _his_ staff to have as much wit as
an average twelve-year-old school boy, they could have found in the
army not merely hundreds, but even thousands of proficient workmen
in a variety of mechanical trades, who would have constructed on the
spot, and at the shortest notice, any number of bridges, pontoons,
&c. Oh, how little are those wiseacre generals, the conceited and
swaggering West Pointers; oh, how very little, if at all are they
aware of the inexhaustible ingenuity and resources, the marvelous
skill and power of such intelligent masses as those of which they
are the unintelligent, the unsympathising and the thoroughly
unblessed leaders!
On a Sunday, exactly four weeks back from the day which I wrote
these lines, McClellan was dismissed, and was succeeded by Burnside.
But, after the established McClellan fashion, the great, great army
was marched 30 to 50 miles, and then halts for weeks up to its knees
in mud, and occupies itself in throwing up earthworks. And this is
called making War! and the Hallecks are great men in the sight of
Abraham Lincoln, and of all who profess and call themselves
Lincolnites, and the rest stand around wondering and agape:
_Conticuere omnes intentique ora (asinina) tenebant._
Stanton's magnificent report states that there are about 700,000 men
under arms; yet this tremendous force is paralysed by the inactivity
of most of the generals; those in the West, however, forming a
bright and truly honorable exception. But, to be candid, how can
activity and dash be expected from generals who have at their head,
a shallow brained pedant like Halleck? Napoleon had about 500,000
men, when, in between four and five months, he marched from the
Rhine to Moscow. Yet he had the aid of no railroad, on land, no
steam, that practical annihilator of distance, no electric
telegraph, with which to be in all but instantaneous communication
with his distant generals, and had not similar material resources.
_Dec. 10._--Mr. Seward's long correspondence with Mr. Adams shows to
Europe that Mr. Seward imitated the rebels, and tried to frighten
England with the bugbear of King Cotton; and also that he has no
solid and abiding convictions whatever. Now, he preaches
emancipation, yet, at the beginning of his _great_ diplomatic
activity, he openly sided with slavery; aye, he is still willing to
save it for the sake of the Union, and, above all, and before all,
for his own chances for the next Presidency.
_Dec. 10._--Burnside has finally crossed the Rappahannock. Of course
I do not know the respective positions. But I am sure that if the
rebels have not a perfectly enormous advantage of position, and if
the leading of the generals be worthy of the courage of their men,
the victory must be ours. Oh! were all our generals Hookers, and not
Burnsides!
General McDowell's Court of Inquiry produces some strange revelations.
The inquiry will not end in making a thorough general of McDowell. He
may have been somewhat unfortunate, no doubt; but his want of good
fortune was at least equalled by his want of good generalship. I, and
many others besides, were quite mistaken in our early estimate of
McDowell. He should not so easily have swallowed the second Bull Run.
He should at least have been wounded, if only ever so slightly; his
best friends must wish that. But to be defeated, and come out without
even a scratch! What a digestion the man must have for the hardest
kinds of humiliation! But neither the President nor that curse of the
country, McClellan, has great reason to plume himself much upon his
share in the revelations that are made in the course of this Inquiry.
McDowell himself seems to have been intended, by nature for a scheming
and adroit politician. * * * *
_Dec. 10._--The Congress feels the ground, hesitates, and apparently
lacks the necessary energy to come to a determination. Lincoln, even
such as he is, contrives to humbug most of the Congressmen. Well!
The first of January is close at hand, and Seward, the Congressional
cook, will concoct unpalatable and costly dishes for Congressional
digestion. Seward is the incarnation of confusion, and of political
faithlessness.
I have only now discovered certain of the reasons why the Battle of
Antietam, so bravely fought by our army, had no _ensemble_ and such
marvelously poor results. Burnside, with his corps, got into line
many hours too late. The rebels were thus enabled to concentrate on
the wing opposed to Hooker and Sumner, the right wing and centre of
the rebels being for the time unthreatened. And that is generalship!
The blame of a blunder so glaring, and in its effect so mischievous,
attaches equally to Burnside and to McClellan. The victory, such as
it was, was due to the subordinate generals, and to the heroic
bravery of the rank and file of the army.
When Burnside was invested with the command of the Army of the
Potomac, he for nearly twenty-four hours retained McClellan in camp,
with the intention of returning the command of the army to him if
the rebels had attacked, as it was expected they would, during
Sunday and Monday.
_Dec. 13._--Night. Fight at Fredericksburgh. No news. O God!
_Dec. 14._--As the consequence of Halleck-Burnside's slowness, our
troops storm positions which are said to be impregnable by nature,
and still farther strengthened by artificial works.
The President is even worse than I had imagined him to be. He has no
earnestness, but is altogether in the hands of Seward and Halleck.
He cannot, even in this supreme crisis, be earnest and serious for
half an hour. Such was the severe but terribly true verdict passed
upon him by Fessenden of Maine.
_Dec. 15._--Slaughter and infamy! Slaughter of our troops who fought
like Titans, though handled in a style to reflect nothing but infamy
upon their commanders. When the rebel works had become impregnable,
then, but not until then, our troops were hurled against them! The
flower of the army has thus been butchered by the surpassing stupidity
of its commanders. The details of that slaughter, and of the
imbecility displayed by our officers in high command,--those details,
when published, will be horrible. The Lincoln-Seward-Halleck-influence
gave Burnside the command because he was to take care of the army. And
how Burnside has fulfilled their expectations! It seems that the best
way to take care of an army is to make it victorious.
My brave and patriotic Wadsworth has gone in the field, also his two
sons; one of them, (Tick,) was at Fredericksburgh, and his bravery
was remarkable, even among all the heroism of that most glorious and
most accursed day. How many such patriots as Wadsworth, can we boast
of? Yet the miserable Halleck had the impudence to say--"Wadsworth
may go wherever he pleases, even if he pleases to go to Hell!"
Hell itself, would be too good a place for Halleck; imbeciles are
not admitted there!
_Dec. 17._--The details are coming in. The disaster of our army is
terrible--indescribable; the heroic people bleeds, bleeds! And all
this calamity and all this suffering and humiliation, are brought on
by the stupidity of Burnside and Halleck, or both of them. The curse
of the people ought to rest for centuries upon the very names of the
authors of such frightful disaster. They are fiends, yea, worse,
even, than the very fiends themselves.
Why, even the very rabble in Constantinople would storm the seraglio
after such a massacre. But here--oh, here, it just reminds Mr.
Lincoln of a little anecdote.
_Dec. 17._--I meet with but few such as Wade, Grimes, Chandler and
other radicals in both Houses of Congress, who seem to feel all the
heart burning and bitterness of soul at this awful Fredericksburgh
disaster. The real criminals, those who ought, in the agonies of a
great shame, call upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them
not, blush not, sorrow not.
In many of the general public, I have no doubt that the feeling of
shame and sympathy, are blunted by these repeated military
calamities, and by Mr. Lincoln's undaunted i..........
* * * * * and men,
Have wept enough, for what? To weep,
To weep again.
_Dec. 17._--About ten days ago, Mr. Seward again sent forth to
Europe and to her Cabinets, one of his stale, and by no means
Delphic oracles, predicting the success of Burnside's campaign, and
immediately follows a bloody and disgraceful calamity! Such is
always the result of Seward's prophecies! A diplomat calls Seward
the evil eye of the Cabinet, and of the country. I suggested to some
of the senators that a resolution be passed prohibiting Mr. Seward
from playing either the prophet or the fool.
Burnside took care of the army, no doubt, but it was of the rebel
army. Our soldiers have been brought by him to the block, to an easy
slaughter, he himself being some few miles in the rear, and having
between him the river, and the intervening miles of land. All this,
however, was according to the regulations, and on the most approved
Halleck-McClellan fashion of fighting great battles.
_Dec. 18._--The disaster was inaugurated by the shelling of
Fredericksburgh. One hundred and forty-seven (147!) guns playing
upon a few houses. It was the play of a maddened child, exhibiting
in equal proportions, reckless ferocity and egregious stupidity; and
it is difficult to find one dyslogistic term which will adequately
describe and condemn it.
From what I can already gather of the details of the attack, it may
be peremptorily concluded that Burnside, Sumner, and above all,
Franklin, are utterly incompetent of a skillful and effective
handling of great masses of troops. They attacked by brigades,
positions so formidable, that if they could possibly be carried by
any exertion of human skill and strength, they could only be carried
by large masses impetuously hurled against them. Franklin seems
especially to have acted ill in not at once throwing in 10,000 men
to be followed rapidly and again and again by 10,000 more. In that
wise and only in that wise, he might possibly have broken and turned
the enemy, and thrown him on his own centre. It is said that
Franklin had 60,000. If so, he could easily have risked some 20,000
in the first onslaught. Sixty thousand! Great God! Why, it is an
army in itself, in the hands of a general at all deserving of that
name. If those great West Pointers had only even the slightest idea
of military history! More battles have been fought and won with
60,000 men, and with fewer still, than with larger numbers, and at
Fredericksburgh Franklin's force formed only a wing against an enemy
whose whole army could number but little more than 60,000. I want
the reports with the full and positive details.
The clear-sighted and warlike TRIBUNE discovered in Burnside high,
brilliant, and soldier-like qualities--admirably borne out and
illustrated no doubt, by the Fredericksburgh butchery! To the
hospital of imbeciles with all such imbeciles!
The _Times_ was manly in its appreciation, and flunkeyed to no one
under hand, that is, confidentially and for newspaper publication.
Mr. Seward reveals to the world at large, that, besides his volume
of 700 pages, containing the last diplomatic correspondence, he has
still an equal number of masterpieces as yet not published. What a
dreadful dysentery of despatch-writing the poor man and his still
more afflicted readers must labor under.
The Lincoln-Seward policy, has rebuilt the awful Democratic party,
which was broken up, prostrated in the dust. Lincoln--Seward--Weed,
partially emasculated the Republican party, and may even emasculate
the thus far thoroughly virile and devoted patriotism of the people.
A helpless imbecile in the hands of a cunning and selfish and
ruthless charlatan, is the sight that daily meets our eyes in
Washington.
General Bayard, one of the slaughtered at Fredericksburgh, was a
true Bayard of the army, and one of the very few West Pointers free
from conceit, that corrosive and terribly prevalent malady of the
West Point clique.
_Dec. 18._--Senators waking up to their duties, and to the
consciousness of their power. These patriots have said to Seward,
_Averte Sathanas_, and overboard he goes, after having done as much
evil as only _he_ could do.
The most contradictory rumors are in circulation about Stanton. I
cannot find out the truth. I do not believe all that is said, but it
is necessary to put the rumors on record. It is said then, that
Stanton stands up for the butchers and asses in the army and in his
department. I believe that in all this, there is not a single word
of truth; but if it were true, then I should say, Stanton is ruined
by bad company, and down with him and with them!
_Quoniam sic Fata tulerunt._ But worthy Senators and
Representatives, believe still in Stanton, and so do I; only the
Seward-Blair-McClellan clique tears Stanton's reputation to pieces.
Stanton seems to be, in some measure, infatuated with Halleck, who,
perhaps, humbugs Stanton with military technicalities, which Halleck
so well knows how to pass current for military science.
_Dec. 20._--The American generals, at least those in the Army of the
Potomac, for the sake of shirking responsibility, maintain that
when once in line of battle, they must rigidly abide by the orders
given to them. No doubt, such is the military law and rule, but it
is susceptible of exceptions. The generals of the Potomac shun the
exceptions, and thus deprive their action of all spontaneity.
Perhaps, indeed, spontaneity of action is not among their military
gifts. Thus we have from them, none of those _coups d'eclat_, those
sudden, brilliant, and impetuously improvised dashes, which so often
decide the fate of the day, and turn imminent defeat and partial
panic into glorious and crowning victory. We find none such, if we
except some actions of Hooker and Kearney, on a small scale, and at
the beginning of the campaign in the Chickahominy, or the Peninsula.
The most celebrated _coups d'eclat_ in general military history,
have mostly been, so to speak, the children of inspiration, seizing
Time by the forelock,--thus using opportunity which sometimes exists
but for a few minutes, and thus a doubtful struggle terminates in a
brilliant success. At such critical moments, the commander of a
wing, or a corps, nay, even a division, ought to have the courage,
the lofty self-abnegation, and firm confidence in his star or good
luck, and still more in the enduring pluck of his men, and boldly
strike for the accomplishment of that which the "Orders" have not
mentioned or foreseen. Such a general acts on his own inspiration,
and at the same time reports to the Commander-in-Chief, what he has
determined upon. If instead of acting thus promptly, he sends and
waits for further orders, the auspicious opportunity may pass away;
the decisive moments in a battle are very rapid, and a single hour
lost, loses the day, or reduces the results of a victory.
I respectfully submit these undeniable but much disregarded truths
to the Hallecks, McClellans, McDowells, and other great West
Pointers.
_Dec. 20._--The political cesspool is deeper, broader, filthier and
more feculent than ever. Seward is triumphant, and the patriots have
very much elongated countenances.
_Dec. 21._--Senator Wilson has learned from Halleck, Burnside, and
from some other and similarly _great_ captains, that the affair of
Fredericksburgh, and the recrossing of the river, brilliantly
compares with the countermarchings of Wagram, and with that
celebrated crossing of the Danube. As there is not, in reality, a
single point of similitude, the comparison is well selected, and
does great honor to the judgment of the military wiseacres. At all
events, never was the memory of a Napoleon, a Massena, or a Davoust,
more ignominiously desecrated than by this comparison.
_Dec. 22._--So, then, Sathanas Seward remains, and Mr. Lincoln
scorns the advice of the wisest and most patriotic Senators. To be
snubbed by Lincoln and Seward, is the greatest of all possible
humiliations. Border-state politicians, Harrises, Brownings and
other etceteras of grain, are the confidential advisers. Political
manhood is utterly, and to all seeming, irretrievably lost.
Stanton still holds with Seward. _Embrassons nous, et que cela
finisse._
How brilliantly do even the very basest times of any government
whatever, Parliamentary, royal or despotic, compare with what I now
daily see here in the capital of the great republic!
Since the earliest existence of political parties, rarely, if ever,
has a party been in such a difficult, and, at times, even disgraceful
position, as that of the patriots of both houses of Congress. Against
the combined attacks of all stripes of traitors, such as ultra
Conservatives, Constitutionalists, Copperheads and pure and impure
Democrats, the patriots must defend an administration which they
themselves condemn, and with the personnel of which, (Stanton and
Wells excepted,) they have no sympathy and no identity of ideas. They
must defend an administration which opposes even measures which they,
the patriots, demand,--an administration which, in the recent
elections, either betrayed or disgraced the whole party, and which
brought into suspicion, if not into actual contempt, the name, nay,
even the principles of the Republicans. And thus the patriots have the
dead weight to support, and are wholly unsupported. The narrow-minded
and shallow Republican press, has no comprehension of the difficulty
of the position in which the patriots are placed; and that press,
being in various ways connected with the administration, rarely, if
ever, supports the patriots, and even mostly neutralises their best
and noblest efforts. Thus, in the move against Seward, and for a
reform in the Cabinet, the enlightened and patriotic Republican press
of New York, was either persistently mute or hostile to the movement.
Every day I am the more firmly convinced that Seward is the great
stumbling block alike to Mr. Lincoln and the country at large.
_Dec, 22._--Utterly incapable as is McClellan, and absolutely
unfitted by nature to be a great captain as is Burnside, yet I think
it quite clear that neither of them would have blundered quite so
terribly if he had been provided with a really competent, zealous
and faithful staff, as the generals of continental Europe invariably
are. But it seems that here, neither the generals nor the government
even desire to understand the true nature, duty, and value of the
staff of an army, or what the chief of such a staff ought to know
and ought to do. What, in fact, can we at all reasonably expect from
a Halleck! After all, however, and shallow as are his brains, this
mock Carnot must have read books on military science; and yet he has
not learned either the use or the composition of a staff for an
army! Had he done so, he would have organized a staff for himself,
and one for each of the commanders in the field. It is true that in
this country there is no school of staffs, and West Pointers are
generally ignorant on that point. Nevertheless, with a little good
will and care, it would be easy enough to find intelligent officers
of all grades fit for staff duties as arranged for staff officers in
Europe. But then, the necessary good will and good judgment are
wanting in the head of this military organization. And this Halleck,
this Halleck is a mere mockery, a mere sciolist, a shallow pretender
to military science. He may have the capacity to translate a book,
but nothing of all that he translates effects any hold upon his
brain, or he would, long before now, have done something towards
organising the army. A general inspector is the first necessity.
Then establish the necessary proportions of each arm of the service,
_i. e._, of infantry, cavalry and artillery for each division. Then
organise the cavalry as a body. When you do this, or even a
considerable part of all this, oh, sham-Carnot, Halleck! then your
chance to be considered a military authority will be established.
Oh, science, oh, insulted science! How desecrated is thy name in the
high places here, and especially on the right and left of the White
House. And oh! you really great and intelligent American PEOPLE, how
ignominiously you are cheated of your blood, your time, your money,
and most of all, of your so recently magnificent national
reputation!
What your military wiseacres show you as an organized army, would
actually thrill, as with the death-shudder, any European military
organizer.
_Dec. 23._--I learn that the day following the butchery at
Fredericksburgh, Burnside wished to renew the attack. What madness!
The generals protested, and Burnside, greatly exasperated, declared
that at the head of his former corps, the 9th, he would himself
storm the miniature Torres Vedras. If all this is true, then
Burnside is weaker headed than I had judged him to be; but I will
not do him the injustice to say that he really intended to play a
mere farce. What, in the name of common sense, could he do with a
single corps, when the whole army was repulsed?
I am warned by a friend, that the Army of the Potomac is so infected
with McClellanism, that is to say, by presumption, intriguing, envy
and misconception of what is true generalship,--that the army must
undergo the process of strong purification, fumigation, pruning and
weeding, (and especially among the higher branches,) before it can
ever again be made truly useful and reliable.
_Dec. 22._--Burnside's report. I am sure that the great luminaries
of the press, and the declaimers, the intriguants and the imbeciles,
will be thrown into fits of ecstatic admiration of what they will
call the manly and straight-forward conduct of Burnside in assuming
the responsibility and confessing his own fault. But what else could
he do? And if he acted thus in obedience to the orders of Halleck,
then instead of manliness, his conduct is almost treasonable towards
the people, for in withholding the truth as to the orders given by
Halleck, he gives that incarnation of calamity the power to repeat
the butchery and ensure the ill success of our armies.
The report is altogether unsoldierly; it is fussy and inflated; a
full blown specimen of the pompously inane. How can Burnside venture
to say that after the repulse, during three days he expected the
enemy to leave his stronghold and attack him--Burnside? The rebels
never did anything to justify such a supposition. They are neither
idiots nor madmen, and only from a McClellan, or some bright pupils
of the McClellan school, could such imbecility, such gratuitously
ruinous playing into the hands of an enemy be expected. A commander
ought to be on the watch for any mistake that his antagonist may
commit, but he is not justified in setting that antagonist down as
an ass. For two days the army was unnecessarily kept under the guns
of the enemy, that is the truth, and I will make the truth known, no
matter who may try to conceal it. Here, for the present, I stop in
sheer and uncontrollable disgust. By and by, however, I will return
to the consideration of this report.
Oh! American people! In so very many respects, truly great people!
Far, very far beyond my poor powers of expression are the great love
and veneration with which ever and always I look upon you. But allow
me, pray allow me to use the frank familiarity of a true friend, so
far as just plainly to tell you, that even I, your sincere friend,
should love you none the less, and certainly should hold you in all
the greater reverence, were you not quite so ultra-favorable in
judgment of your civil and military rulers and pastors and masters
and nincompoops generally!
Further back in this diary, I termed Mr. Secretary Chase a _passive
patriot_. _Peccavi._ And here let me write down my recantation!
Chase exerted himself for the retaining of Seward in the cabinet,
and it was by Chase alone that the efforts of the patriots to expel
Seward, were baffled. And yet, from the first day of the official
assemblage of this cabinet down to the day of the meeting of the
present session of Congress, Chase was more vigorously vicious than
any other living man in daily, hourly, _all the time_, denunciation
of Seward,--of course, behind Seward's back! Several insoluble
problems, no doubt, there are; but there is not one thing, physical
or not physical, which so completely defies any comprehension and
baffles my most persistent inquiry, as just this.
How, unless Chase has drank of the waters of Lethe, how can he
possibly look, now, in the face of, for instance, Fessenden of
Maine, to whom he has said so many bitter things against the now
belauded "Secretary Seward!" Bah! Chase most certainly must have a
forty-or-fifty-diplomatist power of commanding--literally and not
slangishly be it spoken!--his _cheek_, if, without burning blushes
he can look in the face of Fessenden, Sumner or any honest man and
say,--"I admire and I support Secretary Seward!" God! If all who,
during the last two years, have come into contact with Chase, would
but come forward and speak out! In that case, thousands would stand
forth, a "cloud of witnesses," to confirm this statement. Chase!
Faugh! I hereby brand him, and leave him to the bitter judgment of
all men who can conscientiously claim to be even _half honest_.
In merest and barest justice to Seward, greatly as I disapprove of
his general course, I must here note the fact that he is by no means
addicted to evil speaking about any one. Not that this reticence
proceeds from scrupulous feeling or a proud stern spirit. Seward,
however, never speaks evil of any one unless to destroy, and to one
who sympathises in that same amiable wish. To undermine a rival or
to destroy an enemy, Seward will expend any amount of slander; but,
in the absence of personal interest, Seward, though officially
civilian, is, by nature, far too good and too old a soldier to waste
ammunition upon worthless game.
_Dec. 23._--Why could not Mr. Lincoln choose for his Secretary of
State some man who has a holy and wholesome horror of pen, ink, and
paper? Some man gifted with a sound brain, who never is quick at
writing a dispatch, and would demand double salary as the price of
writing one? Oh! Mr. Lincoln, had you but done this, not only would
all America, but all Europe also be truly thankful for great
immunity from the curse of morbid attempts at diplomacy and
statesmanship.
_Dec. 23._--Mr. Lincoln's proclamation to the butchered army! For
heaven's sake let us know, pray, _pray_ let us know who was
Lincoln's amanuensis? I hope it was not Stanton. The army is
defiled. "An accident," says this precious proclamation, "has
prevented victory." _What_ accident? Let the country know the
precise nature of that same accident, and the manner, time, and
place of its occurrence! Burnside talks about a fog! Oh! yes, a
deep, dense terribly foul fog--in the _cerebellum_! Is that the
_accident_ of which the precious proclamation so impudently speaks?
Lincoln makes the wonderful discovery that the crossing and the
recrossing of the river are quite peerless, absolutely unparallelled
military achievements.
Happy it was for the army, and happy for the country that at
Fredericksburgh, our heroic soldiers gave far other and nobler
proofs of more than human courage and fortitude than the mere
crossing and recrossing of a river.
The _Tribune_ is either in its dotage, or still worse. Burnside's
unsoldierly blundering is compared to the great victorious splendors
of Asperm, Esslingen, Wagram, and the tyrant-crushing three days of
immortal Waterloo! The _Tribune_ lauds the crossing and the
recrossing of the river, as an act of superhuman bravery; and
Lincoln sympathises with the heavily wounded, and twaddles
extensively about _comparative_ losses. Comparative to what? Oh!
spirits of Napoleon and his braves; oh! spirit of true history,
veil your blushing brows! And the _Tribune_ dares to make this
impudent attempt at befogging the American people, and at the same
time dares to tell that people that it is "intelligent."
But let us not forget those comparative losses! Comparative to what?
To those of the enemy? What knows he about them?
_Dec. 24._--Crisis in the Seward cabinet. The "little Villain" of
the _Times_, repeated what he did after the first "Bull Run." But he
did not now confess to his dining with Seward, as formerly he did
with the great "anaconda Scott!" The New York Republican press is
attracted to Seward by natural affinity of election. Seward,
however, holds the honey pot, and the flies are all eager to dip
into it.
I wish, yet dread to hear the exact particulars of Stanton's
behavior during the crisis in the cabinet. It is so very, _very_
painful to be rudely awakened to distrust of those whom once we have
too implicitly, too fondly believed. Lincoln has now become
accustomed to Seward, as the hunchback is to his protuberance. What
man who has an ugly excrescence on his face does not dread the
surgeon's knife, although he knows that momentary pain will be
followed by permanent relief?
At the public dinner of "The New England Society," John Van Buren
nominated McClellan for next President, and proposed the health of
Secretary Seward. _Oh! quam pulchra societas!_
I am charged with being "dissatisfied with every thing, and abusing
every body." The charge is unjust. I speak most lovingly and in most
sincere admiration of the millions, of the great, toiling, brave,
honest People, and of the hundreds of thousands of the gallant
people-militant--the army! But I _do_ censure some thirty or forty
individuals who dispense favors and appoint to fat offices, and,
quite naturally, every dirty-souled lickspittle is indignant against
me therefor! The blame of such people is far preferable to their
praise!
I am rejoiced, I am almost proud that Hooker insisted upon crossing
the Rappahannock, and marching to Fredericksburgh, and that he
opposed the subsequent attack.
But of what benefit to me is this fatal, this Cassandra gift of
foreseeing? Alas! Better, happier would it be for me could I not
have foreseen and vainly, all vainly foretold, the terrible butchery
of a brave people during two long and fatal years!
_Dec. 24._--It is impossible to keep cool while reading Burnside's
report. Once more this report justifies and corroborates Prince
Napoleon's judgment on American generals, _i. e._, that their plan
of campaigns will always be deficient in practice, like the
theoretical war-exercises of schoolboys. From this sweeping and
terribly true charge, however, we must except the Grants and
the--alas! how few!--Rosecranses.
The report says, "but for the fog," etc. All lost battles in the
world had for cause some _buts_--except the genuine _but_--in the
brains of the commander.
"How near we came to accomplishing," etc.--is only a repetition of
what, _ad nauseam_, is recorded by history as lamentations of
defeated generals.
"The battle would have been far more decisive." Of course it would
have been so, if--won.
"As it was, we were very near success," etc. So the man who takes
the chance in the lottery. He has No. 4, and No. 3 wins the prize.
The apostrophe to the heroism of the soldiers is sickly and pale.
The heroism of the soldiers! It is as brilliant, as pure, and as
certain as the sun.
The attack was planned, (see paragraph 2 of the report,) on the
circumstance or supposition that the enemy extended too much his
line, and thus scattered his forces. But in paragraph 4, Burnside
stated that the fog, (O, fog!) etc., gave the enemy twenty-four
hours' time to concentrate his forces in his strong positions--when
the calculation based on the enemy's _division of forces_ failed,
and the attack lost all the chances considered propitious.
The whole plan had for its basis probabilities and
impossibilities--schoolroom speculations--instead of being, as it
ought to have been, as every plan of a battle should be, based on
the chances of the _terrain_, by the position of the enemy, and
other conditions, almost wholly depending upon which the armies
operate. It is natural that martial Hooker objected to it.
Oh! could I have blood, blood, blood, instead of ink!
Constructing the bridge over the Rappahannock, our engineers were
killed in scores by the sharp-shooters of the enemy. Malediction on
those imbecile staffs! The _A B C_ of warfare, and of sound common
sense teach, that such works are to be made either under cover of a
powerful artillery fire, or, what is still better, if possible, a
general sends over the river in some way, with infantry to clear its
banks, and to dislodge the enemy. In such cases one engineer saved,
and time won, justify the loss of almost twenty soldiers to one
workman. Some one finally suggested an expedition and they did at
the end what ought to have been done at the start. O West Point! thy
science is marvellous! The staff treated the construction of a
bridge over the Rappahannock as if it were building some railroad
bridge, in times of peace!
I am told that Stanton took sides with Seward. I deny it; Stanton
remained rather passive. But were it true that Stanton, too, is
_Sewardized_,--then, Oh Mud, how powerful thou art!
In Boston, the B.s and Curtises, and all of that kidney, make a
great fuss and invoke the name of Webster. If so, they are only
_excrementa Websteriana_.
_Dec. 24._--Patriots in both Houses of Congress! your efforts to put
the conduct of the national affairs in honorable hands, and on
honorable tracks, to prevent the very life blood of the people from
being sacrilegiously wasted, to prevent the people's wealth from
being recklessly squandered; your efforts to introduce order and
spirit in certain parts of a spiritless Administration, to fill the
higher and inferior offices with men whose hearts and minds are in
the cause, and to expel therefrom, if not absolute disloyalty, at
least, the most criminal indifference to the people's cause and
welfare; your efforts to make us speak to Europe like men of sense,
and not in the senseless oracles which justly evoke the scorn and
the sneers of all European statesmen; all these your efforts as
patriots rebounded against a nameless stubbornness.
Nevertheless you fulfilled a noble, sacred and patriotic duty.
Whatever be to-day the outcry of the Flatfoots, lickspittles,
intriguers, imbeciles; whatever be the subserviency or want of civic
courage in the public press--when all these stinking, suffocating,
deleterious vapors shall be destroyed by the ever-living light of
truth, then the grateful people will bless your names, which, pure
and luminous, will shine high above the stupidity, conceit,
heartlessness, turpitude, selfish ambition, indirect and direct
treason darkening now the national horizon.
_Dec. 25._--_Christmas._ The Angel of Death hovers over thousands
and thousands of hearths. Thousands and thousands of families in
tears and shrouds. Communities, villages, huts and log-houses,
nursing their crippled, invalid, patriotic heroes! A year ago, all
was quiet on the _Potomac_--now all is quiet on the _Rappahannock_.
What a progress we have made in a year! and at the small,
insignificant cost of about sixty to eighty thousand killed or
crippled, and of one thousand millions of dollars! But it matters
not! The quietude of the official butchers and money squanderers is,
and must remain undisturbed in their mansions, whatever be the moral
leprosy dwelling therein!
A young man from New England, (whom I saw for the first time,) told
me that my Diary stirred up the youth. Oh, if so, then I feel happy.
Youth! youth! you are all the promise and the realization! But why
do you suffer yourselves to be crushed down by the upper-crust of
senile nincompoops? Oh youth, arise, and sun-like penetrate through
and through the magnitude of the work to be accomplished, and save
the cause of humanity!
_Dec. 25._--As it was and is in all Revolutions and upheavals, so
here. A part of the people constitute the winners, in various ways,
(through shoddy names, jobs, positions, etc.) while the immense
majority bleeds and sacrifices. Here many people left poorly
salaried desks, railroads, shops, &c. to become great men but poor
statesmen, cursed Generals, and mischief-makers in every possible
way and manner. The people's true children abandoned homes,
families, honest pursuits of an industrious and laborious life--in
one word, their ALL, to bleed, to be butcherer, to die in the
country's cause. The former are the winners, the sacrificers, and
the butchers; the second are the victims.
The evidence before the War Committee shows, to a most disgusting
satiety, that General Halleck is exclusively a red-tapist, and a
small pettifogger, who is unworthy to be even a non-commissioned
officer; General Burnside an honest, well intentioned soldier,
thoroughly brave, but as thoroughly destitute of generalship;
General Sumner an unquestionably brave but headlong trooper; and
Hooker alone in possession of all the capacity and resources of a
captain. General Woodbury's evidence is that of a man under
difficulties, on whom his superiors in rank have thrown the
responsibility of their own crime.
Halleck alone is responsible for the non-arrival of the pontoons.
Burnside could not look for them; it was the duty of Halleck to
order some of the semi-geniuses of his staff to the special duty of
seeing to their delivery at Fredericksburgh, to give them necessary
power to use roads, steamers, water, animals and men for
transportation, and make it a capital responsibility if Sumner finds
not the pontoons on the spot, and at the precise day and hour when
he wanted them. Then, Gen. Meigs, who coolly asserts that he "gave
orders." O yes! but he never dreamed it was his duty to look for
their execution. The fate of the campaign depended upon the
pontoons, and Halleck-Meigs "gave orders," and there was an end of
it. In any other country, such culprits would have been at the least
dismissed--cashiered, if not shot; here, their influence is on the
increase. Halleck and Meigs are still great before Mr. Lincoln, and
before the mass of nincompoops.
Rhetors and sham-erudites are ecstatic about Burnside's conduct.
Well! Burnside is good-natured--that is all. They forget the example
of Canrobert and Pellisier, in the Crimea. Canrobert, after having
commanded the army, gave up the command, and served under Pellisier.
Oh declaimers! Oh imbeciles! ransack not the world--let Rome alone,
and its Punic wars, its Varrus, etc.--Disturb not history, which,
for you, is a book with seventy-seven seals. You understand not
events under your long noses, and before your opaque eyes.
When in animal bodies the brains are diseased, the whole body's
functions are more or less paralyzed. The official brains of the
nation are in a morbid condition. _That_ explains all.
_Dec. 27._--I wish I could succeed in bringing about the
organization of a good Staff for the army. _Etat Major General de
l'Armee_ Stanton seems to understand it, but the Hallecks and other
West Pointers have neither the first idea of it, nor the will to see
it done.
_Dec. 28._--The so-called great papers of the Republican party in
New York, as well as some would-be statesmen here, discuss the
probability of some new manifestation by Louis Napoleon, or by
other European powers, of interference in our internal affairs. The
probability of such a demonstration by European meddlers can only
have one of the following causes:--Our terrible disaster at
Fredericksburg, or, what even is worse than that slaughter, the
absolute incapacity of our leaders to cope with such great and
terrible events as this last one. The bravery, the heroism of our
soldiers will be applauded, admired, and pitied in Europe, but the
utter intellectual marasmus, as shown by our administration, will
and must embolden the European marplots to attempt to stop what they
consider a further unnecessary massacre. General Burnside's report,
and the evidence before the War Committee are before the country and
before Europe. Therefore Europe and our country are to judge.
During his last visit in summer to New York, etc. the French
Minister came in contact with low French adventurers, (Courriers des
Etats Unis) with copperheads and with democrats, and now he is taken
with sickly diplomatic sentimentalism to conciliate, to mediate, to
unite, to meddle, and to get a feather in his diplomatic cap. I am
sorry for him, for in other respects he has considerable sound
judgment. _Mais il est toque sur cette question ci._ He is ignorant
of the temper of the masses, and considers the assertions of
adventurers, of traitors, and of meddlers, as being the expression
of the sentiments of the people. But sensible diplomats are _rari
aves_.
Hooker, because he alone is a _captain_, cannot be in command.
Infamous intriguers, traitors, and imbeciles, prevent Hooker from
being intrusted with the destinies of our army. Whole regiments
claim to serve under him, and above all such regiments as fought
under others in the peninsula, and always have been worsted, and who
wish once to be led to success and victory, as were always Hooker's
soldiers. The Franklins, and other marplotters in the Potomac Army,
menace to resign if Hooker is put in command. The sooner the better
for the army to get rid of such trash. But the imbeciles and the
intriguers in power think not so; and all may remain as it was, and
a new slaughter of our heroes may loom in the future.
_Dec. 29._--General Butler's proclamation to his soldiers in New
Orleans is the best and noblest document written since this war. It
is good, because it records noble and patriotic deeds. During those
eighteen months General Butler has shown capacity, activity, energy,
fertility of resources and readiness to meet any emergency,
unequalled by any one in the administration or in command. And for
this, Butler is superseded, because Seward promised it to the
_Decembriseur_ in the Tuilleries, and because he is a _man_, and
_conservative patriots_, _alias_ traitors, could not get at him.
_Dec. 30._--Angel of wrath, smite, smite! Oh, genius of humanity,
take into thy mercy this noble people! Oh, eternal reason, send the
feeblest breath of divine emanation and arrest this all-devouring
torrent of imbecility, selfishness and conceit that is reigning
paramount here. Only the PEOPLE'S devotion and patriotism, only the
_unnamed_ save the country!
_Dec. 30._--Those foreign caterwaulings against Butler. England, in
1848-9, whipped women in Ireland, and how many thousands have been
murdered by the _Decembriseur_? And the Russian minister joining in
this music. A shame for him and for his government!
_Dec. 30._--Poor Greeley looks for intervention, mediation,
arbitration; and selects Switzerland for the fitting arbitrator! How
little--nay--nothing at all, he knows about Switzerland and the
Swiss! Stop! stop! respectable old man!
_Dec. 31._--Stanton is not at all responsible for the slaughter at
Fredericksburgh, or for the infamy of the belated pontoons. Halleck
has the exclusive control of all military movements, etc., in the
field. But Stanton ought not be benumbed by a Halleck or a Meigs.
The people at large cannot realize the really awful position of
patriotic members of Congress, and above all, of such senators as
Wade, Grimes, Fessenden, Wilson, Morrill, Chandler and others, or
the almost similar position of Stanton, in his contact with the
double-dealings or the obstinacy of Lincoln.
_Dec. 31._--To-morrow few, if any, shall miss the occasion to shake
hands with the official butchers, with men dripping with the gore of
their brethren. Oh, Cains! oh, fratricides!
_Dec. 31._--_Midnight._--Disappear! oh year of disgraces, year of
slaughters and of sacrifices.
_Tschto den griadoustchi nam gotowit?_ (Puschkine.)
Ring out the false, ring in the true,
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
* * *
* * *
Ring in REDRESS _for all mankind_!