Lord Lyons -- Blue book -- Diplomats -- Butler -- Franklin --
Bancroft -- Homunculi -- Fetishism -- Committee on the Conduct of
the War -- Non-intercourse -- Peterhoff -- Sultan's Firman --
Seward -- Halleck -- Race -- Capua -- Feint -- Letter writing --
England -- Russia -- American Revolution -- Renovation -- Women
-- Monroe doctrine, etc., etc., etc.
_April 1._--The English Blue Book reveals the fact that Lord Lyons
held meetings and semi-official, or if one will, unofficial _talks_
with what he calls "the leaders of the Conservatives in New York;"
that is, with the leaders of the Copperheads, and of the slavery and
rebellion saviours. The Despatches of Lord Lyons prove how difficult
it is to become familiar with the public spirit in this country,
even for a cautious, discreet diplomat and an Englishman. But
perhaps we should say, _because_ an Englishman, Lord Lyons became
confused. Lord Lyons took for reality a bubble emanating from a
putrescent fermentation. I am at a loss to understand why Earl
Russell divulged the above mentioned correspondence, thus putting
Lord Lyons into a false and unpleasant position with the party in
power.
As for the fact itself, it is neither new nor unwonted. Diplomacy
and diplomats meddle with all parties; they do it openly or
secretly, according to circumstances. English diplomacy was always
foremost in meddling, and above all it has been so during this whole
century. The English diplomat is not yet born, who will not meddle
or intrigue with all kinds of parties, either in a nation, in a body
politic, in a cabinet or at court.
When a nation, a dynasty, a government becomes entangled in domestic
troubles, the first thing they have to do is to politely bow out of
the country all the foreign diplomacy and diplomats, be these
diplomats hostile, indifferent, or even friendly. And the longer a
diplomat has resided in a country, the more absolutely he ought to
be bowed out with his other colleagues; to bow them all in or back,
when the domestic struggle is finished.
History bristles with evidences of the meddling of diplomats with
political parties, and bears evidence of the mischief done, and of
the fatal misfortunes accruing to a country that is victimised by
foreign diplomacy and by diplomats. Without ransacking history so
far back as to the treaty of Vienna, (1815) look to Spain, above
all, during Isabella I.'s minority, to Greece, to Turkey, etc. And
under my eyes, Mexico is killed by diplomacy and by diplomats.
Diplomatic meddlings become the more dangerous when no court exists
that might more or less control them, to impress on them a certain
curb in their semi-official and non-official conduct. But at times
it is difficult, even to a sovereign, to a court, to keep in order
the intriguing diplomats, above all to keep them at bay in their
semi-official social relations.
In principle, and _de facto_, a diplomat, and principally a diplomat
representing a powerful sovereign or nation, has no, or very few,
private, inoffensive, social, worldly, parlor relations in the
country, or in the place to which he is appointed, and where he
resides. Every action, step, relation, intimacy of a diplomat has a
signification, and is watched by very argus-like eyes; alike by the
government to which he is accredited, and by his colleagues, most of
whom are also his rivals. Not even the Jesuits watch each other more
vigilantly, and denounce each other more pitilessly, than do the
diplomats--officially, semi-officially and privately.
It requires great tact in a diplomat to bring into harmony his
official and his social, and non-official conduct. Lord Lyons
generally showed this tact and adroitly avoided the breakers. At
times such want of harmony is apparent and is the result of the
will, or of the principles of the court and of the sovereign
represented by a diplomat. Thus, after the revolution of July, 1830,
the sovereign and the diplomats in the Holy Alliance, of Russia,
Austria, and Prussia recognised Louis Phillipe's royalty as a fact
but not as a principle. Therefore, in their social relations the
Ambassadors of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, most emphatically sided
with the Carlists, the most bitter and unrelenting enemies of the
Orleans and of the order of things inaugurated by the revolution of
July, and Carlists always crowded the saloons of the Holy Alliance's
diplomats. The Duke d'Orleans, Louis Phillipe's son, scarcely dared
to enter the brilliant, highly aristocratic, and purely legitimist
saloon of the Countess Appony, wife of the Austrian Ambassador. Of
course the conduct of the Count and Countess was approved, and
applauded, in Vienna. But at times, for some reason or other, a
diplomat puts in contradiction his official and non-official
conduct, and does it not only without instructions or approval of
his sovereign and government, but in contradiction to the intentions
of his master and in contradiction to the prevailing opinion of his
country. And thus it happens, that a diplomat presents to a
government in trouble the most sincere and the most cheering
official expressions of sympathy from his master; and with the same
hand the diplomat gives the heartiest shakes to the most unrelenting
enemies of the same government.
The Russian, skillful, shrewd and proud diplomacy, generally holds
an independent, almost an isolated position from England and from
France. The Russian diplomacy goes its own way, at times joined or
joining according to circumstances, but never, never following in
the wake of the two rival powers. During this our war, and doubtless
for the first time since Russian diplomacy has existed, a Russian
diplomat semi and non-officially, seemingly, limped after the
diplomats of England and of France. But such a diplomatic _mistake_
can not last long.
_April 2._--Official, lordish, Toryish England, plays treason and
infamy right and left. The English money lenders to rebels, the
genuine owners of rebel piratical ships, are anxious to destroy the
American commerce and to establish over the South an English
monopoly. All this because _odiunt dum metuant_ the Yankee. You
tories, you enemies of freedom, your time of reckoning will come,
and it will come at the hands of your own people. You fear the
example of America for your oppressions, for your rent-rolls.
_April 3._--The country ought to have had already about one hundred
thousand Africo-Americans, either under arms, in the field, or
drilling in camps. But to-day Lincoln has not yet brought together
more than ten to fifteen thousand in the field; and what is done, is
done rather, so to speak, by private enterprise than by the
Government. Mr. Lincoln hesitates, meditates, and shifts, instead of
going to work manfully, boldly, and decidedly. Every time an
Africo-American regiment is armed or created, Mr. Lincoln seems as
though making an effort, or making a gracious concession in
permitting the increase of our forces. It seems as if Mr. Lincoln
were ready to exhaust all the resources of the country before he
boldly strikes the Africo American vein. How differently the whole
affair should have been conducted!
_April 4._--Almost every day I hear very intelligent and patriotic
men wonder why every thing is going on so undecidedly, so
sluggishly; and all of them, in their despondency, dare not or will
not ascend to the cause. And when they finally see where the fault
lies, they are still more desponding.
Europe, that is, European statesmen, judge the country, the people,
by its leaders and governors. European statesmen judge the events by
the turn given to them by a Lincoln, a Seward; this furnishes an
explanation of many of the misdeeds committed by English and French
statesmen.
_April 4._--The people at large, with indomitable activity, mends,
repairs the disasters resulting from the inability and the
selfishness of its official chiefs. One day, however, the people
will turn its eyes and exclaim:
"_But thou, O God! shalt bring them down into the pit of
destruction; bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their
days._"
_April 4._--General Butler's speech in New York, at the Academy of
Music, is the best, nay, is the paramount exposition of the whole
rebellion in its social, governmental and military aspects. No
President's Message, no letter, no one of the emanations of Seward's
letter and dispatch-writing, corrosive disease, not an article in any
press compares with Butler's speech for lucidity, logic, conciseness
and strong reasoning. Butler laid down a law, a doctrine--and what he
lays down as such, contains more cardinal truth and reason than all
that was ever uttered by the Administration. And Butler is shelved and
bartered to France by Seward as long since as 1862; and the people
bear it, and the great clear-sighted press subsides, instead of day
and night battering the Administration for pushing aside the _only
man_, emphatically the ONLY MAN who was always and everywhere equal to
every emergency--who never was found amiss, and who never forgot that
an abyss separates the condition of a rebel, be he armed or unarmed,
(the second even more dangerous,) from a loyal citizen and from the
loyal Government.
_April 4._--The annals of the Navy during this war will constitute a
cheering and consoling page for any future historian. If the Navy at
times is unsuccessful, the want of success can be traced to
altogether different reasons than many of the disasters on land.
Nothing similar to McClellanism pollutes the Navy--and want of
vigilance and other mistakes become virtues when compared with want
of convictions, with selfishness, and with intrigue. I have not yet
heard any justified complaint against the honesty of the Navy
Department; I feel so happy not to be disappointed in the tars of
all grades, and that Neptune Welles, with his Fox, (but not a
red-haired, thieving fox,) keep steady, clean, and as active as
possible.
_April 5._--Senator Sumner pines and laments, Jeremiah-like, on the
ruins of our foreign policy, and accuses Seward of it--behind his
back. Why has not _pater conscriptus_ uttered a single word of
condemnation from his Senatorial _fauteuil_, and kept mute during
three sessions? _Sunt nobis homunculi sed non homines._
_April 5._--A letter in the papers, in all probability written under
the eye of General Franklin, tries to exculpate the General from all
the blood spilt at Fredericksburgh. It will not do, although the
writer has in his hands documents, as orders, etc. Franklin orders
General Meade to attack the enemy's lines at the head of 4500 men,
(he ought to have given to Meade at least double that number); brave
and undaunted Meade breaks through the enemy; and Franklin's excuse
for not supporting Meade is, that he had no orders from
head-quarters to do it. By God! Those geniuses, West Point No. Ones,
suppose that any dust can be thrown to cover their nameless--at the
best--helplessness. Franklin commanded a whole wing, sixty thousand
men; his part in the battle was the key to the whole attack.
Franklin's eventual success must decide the day. Meade was in
Franklin's command, and to support Meade, Franklin wants an order
from head-quarters. Such an excuse made by a general at the head of
a large part of the army--or rather such a crime not to support a
part of his own command engaged with the enemy, because no special
orders from head-quarters prescribed his doing so--such a case or
excuse is almost unexampled in the history of warfare. And when such
cases happened, then the guilty was not long kept in command. Three
bloody groans for Franklin!
_April 6._--George Bancroft has the insight of a genuine historian.
Few men, if any, can be compared to him for the clearness, breadth,
and justness with which in this war Bancroft comprehends and
embraces events and men. Bancroft's judgment is almost faultless,
and it is to be regretted that Bancroft, so to speak, is outside of
the circle instead of being inside, and in some way among the
pilots.
_April 6._--The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War
will make the coming generation and the future historian shudder. No
one will be able to comprehend how such a McClellan could have been
thus long kept in the command of an army, and still less how there
could have existed men claiming to have sound reason and heart, and
constitute a McClellan party. McClellan is the most disgusting
psychological anomaly. It is an evidence how a mental poison rapidly
spreads and permeates all. As was repeatedly pointed out in this
DIARY, individuals who started the McClellan fetishism, were
admirers of the _Southern gentlemen_, were worshippers of slavery,
were secret or open partisans of rebellion. Many such subsequently
appear as Copperheads, peace men, as Union men, as Conservatives.
The other stratum of McClellanism is composed of intriguers. These
combined forces, supported by would-be wise ignorance, spread the
worship, and poisoned thousands and tens of thousands of honest but
not clear-sighted minds. The Report, or rather the investigation was
conducted with the utmost fairness; of course Ben Wade could not act
otherwise than fairly and nobly. Some critics say that McClellan's
case could have been yet more strongly brought out, and the fetish
could have been shown to the people in his most disgustingly true
nakedness.
_April 6._--The people feel how the treason of the English
evilwishers slowly extends through its organs. By Butler, Wade,
Grimes and others, the people ask for non-intercourse with the
English assassin, who surreptitiously, stealthily under cover of
darkness, of legal formality, deals, or attempts to deal, a deadly
blow. The American sentimentalists strain to the utmost their soft
brains, to find excuses for English treason.
English lordlings, scholars, moralists of the Carlyleian mental
perversion comment Homer, instead of being clear sighted
commentators of what passes under their noses. The English
phrase-mongering philanthropists all with joy smacked their bloody
lips at the, by them ardently wished and expected downfall of a
noble, free and self-governing people. Tigers, hyenas and jackals!
clatter your teeth, smack your lips! but you shall not get at the
prey.
_April 7._--The President visits the Potomac army at Falmouth.
Seward wished to be of the party, offering to make a stirring speech
to the soldiers--that is, to impress the heroes with the notion that
in Seward they beheld a still greater hero, a patriot reeking with
Unionism and sacrifices, and eventually prepare their votes for the
next presidential election. Certain influences took the wind out of
Seward's sails, and as a naughty, arrogant boy, he was left behind
to bite his nails, and to pour out a logomachy.
_April 7._--I am very uneasy about Charleston. It seems that
something works foul. Either they have not men enough, or brains
enough. A good artillerist, having confidence in the guns, and
having the needed insight how and where to use them, ought to
command our forces. Will the iron-clads resist the concentric fire
from so numerous batteries?
The diplomats of the _prospective mediation_ and their tails are
scared by the elections in Connecticut. Others, however, of that
illustrious European body are out-spoken friends of Union and of
freedom. The representatives of the American republics are to be
relied upon. St. Domingo, Mexico sufficiently teaches all races,
_latin_ (_?_) as well as non-latin, that honey-mouthed governmental
Europe is an all-devouring wolf under a sheep's skin.
Non-intercourse! no intercourse with England and with France as
long as France chooses to be ridden by the _Decembriseur_! Such
ought to be the watchword for a long, long time to come.
_April 8._--The New York _Times_ is now boiling with patriotic wrath
against McClellan. Very well. But when McClellan captured maple guns
at Centerville and Manassas, when he digged mud and graves for our
soldiers before Yorktown, and in the Chickahominy, the _Times_ was
extatic beyond measure and description, extatic over the matured
plans, the gigantic strategy of McClellan--and at that epoch the
_Times_ powerfully contributed to confuse the public opinion.
_April 8._--A Mr. Ockford, (or of similar name,) who for many years,
was a ship broker in England, advised our government and above all,
Mr. Seward, to institute proceedings before the English courts
against the building and arming of the iron-clads for the rebels.
Seward, of course, snubbed him off with the Sewardian verdict that
the jury in England will give or pronounce no verdict of guilty, in
our favor, as our jury would not find any one guilty of treason.
Good for a Seward.
Patriots from various States, among them Boutwell, now member of
Congress from Massachusetts, urged the Cabinet; 1st, to declare
peremptorily to the English Government that if the rebel iron-clads
are allowed to go out from English ports, our government will
consider it as being a deliberate and willful act of hostility; 2d,
to publish at once the above declaration, that the English people
at large may judge of the affair. Seward opposed such a bold
step--Sumner ditto.
_April 9._--I am at a loss to find in history, any government
whatever that so little took or takes into account the intrinsic and
intellectual fitness of an individual for the office entrusted to
him, as does the government of Mr. Lincoln. I cannot imagine that it
could have been always so, under previous administrations. It seems
that in the opinion of the Executive, not only geniuses, but men of
studies, and of special and specific preparation and knowledge run
in the streets, crowd the villages and states, and the Executive has
only to stretch his hand from the window, to take hold of an
unmistakable capacity, etc. The Executive ought to have some
experience by this time; but alas, _experientia non docet_ in the
White House.
_April 10._--Agitated as my existence has been, I never fell among
so much littleness, meanness, servility as here. To avoid it, and
not to despair, or rage, or despond, several times a day, it is
necessary to avoid contact with politicians, and reduce to few, very
few, all intercourse with them. I cannot complain, as I find
compensation--but nevertheless, I am afraid that the study and the
analysis of so much mud and offal may tell upon me. Physical
monstrosities are attractive to physiologists or rather to
pathologists. But an anthropologist prefers normal nobleness of
mind, and shudders at sight and contact with intellectual and moral
crookedness.
_April 11._--Sumter day. Two years elapsed, and treason not yet
crushed; Charleston not yet ploughed over and sown with salt;
Beauregard still in command, and the snake still keeping at bay the
eagle. And all this because in December, 1861, and in January, 1862,
McClellan wished not, Seward wished not, and Mr. Lincoln could not
decide whether to wish that Charleston and Savannah--defenceless at
that time--be taken after the fall of Port Royal. Two years! and the
people still bleed, and the exterminating angel strikes not the
malefactors, and the earth bursts not, and they are not yet in
Gehenna's embrace.
Old patriot Everett made an uncompromising speech. That is by far
better than to make a hero out of a McClellan. But the misdeeds of
the Administration easily confused such impressionable receptive
minds as is Edward Everett's.
_April 11._--The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War,
discloses how McClellan deliberately ruined General Stone, and I
have little doubt that McClellan ruined Fitz-John Porter.
_April 12._--Our navy makes brilliant prizes of Anglo-rebel flags
and ships. But Mr. Seward does his utmost to render the labor of our
cruisers as difficult and as dangerous as possible. Of course he
does it not intentionally, only because he so _masterly masters_ the
international laws, the laws and rules of search, the rights and
duties of neutrals, etc., and as a genuine incarnation of _fiat
justitia_, he is indifferent to national interests and to the
national flag.
I am curious to learn whether the truth will ever be generally known
concerning the seizure of the Anglo-rebel steamer Peterhoff. Then
the people would learn how old Welles bravely defended what _turpe_
Seward had decided to drag in the mire. The people would learn what
an utterly ignorant impudence presided over the restoring to England
of the Peterhoff's mail bag of a vessel a contrabandist, a blockade
runner, and a forger. The people would know how Mr. Seward, aided by
Mr. Lincoln, has done all in his power to make impossible the
condemnation of the Anglo-rebel property. The people would know how
_turpe_ Seward tried to urge and to persuade Neptune Welles to
violate the statutes of the country; how the great Secretary of
State declared that he cared very little for law, and how he and
Lincoln, by a Sultan's firman, directed the decision of the Judge on
his bench.
_April 14._--My gloomy forebodings about the attack on Charleston
are already partly realized. Beaten off! that is the short solution
of a long story. But of course nobody will be at fault. This attack
on Charleston to some extent justifies: _parturiunt montes_, etc.
_De profundis clamavi_ for light and some inklings of sense and
energy. But to search for sense and energy among counterfeits!...
The condition here vividly brings to mind Ovid's
...... ...... quem dixere chaos!
_April 14._--In a letter to the Loyal League of New York, Mr. Seward
is out with his--at least--one hundred and fiftieth prophecy. As
fate finds a particular pleasure in quickly giving the lie to the
inspired prophet, so we have the affair of Charleston, and some
other small disasters. Oh, why has Congress forgotten to pass a law
forbidding Seward, for decency's sake, to make himself ridiculous?
Among others, hear the following query: _Whether this unconquerable
and irresistible nation shall suddenly perish through imbecility?_
etc. O Mr. Seward! how can you thus pointedly and mercilessly
criticise your own deeds and policy? Seward squints toward the
presidency that he may complete that masterly production.
Oh! how the old hacks turn their dizzy heads towards the White
House. It would be ludicrous, and the lowest comedy of life, were
not the track running through blood and among corpses. I am told
that even Halleck squints that way. And why not? All is possible;
and Halleck's nag has as long ears as have the nags and hacks of the
other race-runners.
_April 14._--Halleck consolidates the regiments and incidentally
deprives the army of the best and most experienced officers. The
numerically smaller regiment is dissolved in the larger one. But
most generally the smaller regiment was the bravest and has seen
more fire which melted it. Thus good officers are mustered out and
thrown on the pavement, and the enthusiasm for the flag of the
regiment destroyed, for its victorious memories, for the
recollections of common hardships and all the like noble cements of
a military life. Certainly, great difficulty exists to remount or to
restore a regiment. But O, Hallecks! O, Thomases! O, McDowells! all
of you, genii, or genuises, surmount difficulties.
_April 14._--In a public speech in New York, General Fremont has
explained the duty and the obligations of a soldier in a republic.
Few, very few, of our striped and starred citizens, and still less
those educated at West Point have a comprehension of what a
Republican citizen soldier is.
_April 14._--Halleck directly and indirectly exercises a fatal
influence on our army. I learn that his book on military not-science
largely circulates; above all, in the Potomac Army.
_April 14._--It is the mission of the American people to make all
the trials and experiences by which all other nations will hereafter
profit. So the social experiment of self-government; the same with
various mechanical and commercial inventions. The Americans
experiment in political and domestic economy, in the art provided
for man's well-being and in the art of killing him. New fire-arms,
guns, etc., are now first used.
The until now undecided question between batteries on land and
floating ones will be decided in Charleston harbor. Who will have
the best, the Monitors or the batteries?
_April 15._--I wrote to Hooker imploring him for the sake of the
country, and for the sake of his good name, to put an end to the
carousings in his camp, and to sweep out all kind of women, be they
wives, sisters, sweethearts or the promiscuous rest of crinolines.
_April 15._--Certain Republican newspapers perform now the same
capers to please and puff Seward and Halleck, as they did before to
puff McClellan when in power.
_April 16._--Night after night the White House is serenaded. And why
not?... From all sides news of brilliant victories on land and on
sea; news that Seward's foreign policy is successful; everywhere
Halleck's military science carries before it everything, and
lickspittles are numberless.
Wild jauchtzend schleudert selbst der Gott der Freude,
Den Pechkrantz in das brenene Gebauede!
My veins and brains almost bursting to witness all this. But for ...
it would be all over.
... tibi desinet.
_April 17._--I met one of the best and of the most radical
ex-members of Congress. He was very desponding, almost despairing at
the condition of affairs. He returned from the White House, and
notwithstanding his despair, tried to explain to me how Mr.
Lincoln's eminent and matchless civil and military capacities
finally will save the country. _Et tu, Brute_, exclaimed I, without
the classical accent and meaning. The ex-honorable had in his pocket
a nomination for an influential office.
_April 17._--Immense inexhaustible means in men, money, beasts,
equipment, war material devoured and disappearing in the bottomless
abyss of helplessness. The counterfeits ask for more, always for
more, and more of the high-minded people grudge not its blood.
_Labitur ex oculis ... gutta meis._
A Forney puffs Cameron over Napoleon! A true American gentlewoman as
patriotic as patriotism itself, quivering under the disastrous
condition of affairs at home and abroad, exclaimed: "that at least
the Southern leaders redeem the honor of the American name by their
indomitable bravery, their iron will and their fertility of
resources." What was to be answered?
_April 18._--As long as England is ruled by her aristocracy,
whether Tories or Whigs, a Hannibalian hate ought to be the creed of
every American. Let the government of England pass into the hands of
JOHN S. MILL, and into those of the Lancashire working classes, and
then the two peoples may be friends.
_April 18._--Hooker is to move. If Hooker brings out the army
victorious from the bad strategic position wherein the army was put
by Halleck-Burnside, then the people can never sufficiently admire
Hooker's genius. Such a manoeuvre will be a revelation.
_April 18._--I learn that General Hunter has about seven thousand
disposable men in his whole department, for the attack of
Charleston. If he is to storm the batteries by land, then Hunter has
not men enough to do it; it is therefore folly and crime to order,
or to allow, the attack of the defenses of Charleston.
_April 18._--Mr. Seward has not at all given up his firm decision to
violate the national statutes and the international rules, by
insisting upon the restoration to England of the mails of that
Anglo-Piratic vessel, the Peterhoff. A mail on a blockade-runner
enjoys no immunity, since regular mail steamers, or at least mail
agents and carriers are established by England. Even previously,
neutral private vessels could not always claim the immunity for the
mail, when they are caught in an unlawful trade. But, of course, the
State Department knows better.
In the case of the ship Labuan, an English blockade-runner, Mr.
Seward, backed by Mr. Lincoln, ordered the judge how to decide,
ordered the judge to give up the prize, and Mr. Seward urged the
English agents not to lose time in prosecuting American captors for
costs and damages. The Labuan was a good prize, but Mr. Seward is
the incarnation of wisdom and of justice!
_April 20._--The not quite heavenly trio--Lincoln, Seward and
Halleck--maintain, and find imbeciles and lickspittles enough to
believe them, that they, the trio, could not as yet, act decidedly
in the Emancipation question, they being in this, as in other
questions, too far in advance of the people. What blasphemy! Those
_lumina mundi_ believe that the people will forget their records. To
be sure, the Americans, good-natured as they are, easily forget the
misdeeds of _yesterday_, but this _yesterday_ shall be somehow
recalled to their memory.
If all the West Pointers were like Grant, Rosecrans, Hooker, Barnard
and thousands of them throughout all grades, then West Point would
be a blessing for the country. Unhappily, hitherto, the small, bad
clique of West Point engineers No. one, exercised a preponderating
influence on the conduct of the war, and thus West Point became in
disrespect, nay, in horror. I believe that the good West Pointers
are more numerous than the altogether bad ones, but they often mar
their best qualities by a certain, not altogether admirable, _esprit
du corps_.
_April 20._--The generation crowding on this fogyish one will sit in
court of justice over the evil-doers, over the helpless, over the
egotists who are to-day at work. That generation will begin the
assizes during the lifetime of these great leaders in Administration,
in politics, in war.
_Discite justitiam moniti nec temere divos!_
_April 20._--Yesterday, April 19th, Mr. Lincoln and his Aide,
Halleck, went to Acquia Creek to visit Hooker, to have a peep into
his plans, and, of course to babble about them. I hope Hooker will
most politely keep his own secrets.
_April 21._--The American people never will and never can know and
realize the whole immensity of McClellan's treasonable incapacity,
and to what extent all subsequent disasters have their roots in the
inactivity of McClellan during 1861-62. Whatever may be the official
reports, or private investigations, chronicles, confessions,
memoirs, all the facts will never be known. Never will it be known
how almost from the day when he was intrusted with the command,
McClellan was without any settled plans, always hesitating,
irresolute; how almost hourly he (deliberately or not, I will not
decide) stuffed Mr. Lincoln with lies, and did the same to others
members of the Cabinet. The evidences thereof are scattered in all
directions, and it is impossible to gather them all. Mr Lincoln
could testify--if he would. Almost every day I learn some such fact,
but I could not gather and record them all. Seward mostly sided with
McClellan, and so did Blair, _par nobile fratrum_.
Few, if any, detailed reports of the campaigns and battles fought
by McClellan have been sent by him to the President or to the War
Department. Such reports ought to be made immediately; so it is done
in every well regulated government. It is the duty of the staff of
the army to prepare the like reports. But McClellan did in his own
way, and his reports, if ever he sends them, would only be
disquisitions elaborated _ex post_, and even apart from their
truthfulness--null.
All kinds of lies against Stanton have been elaborated by McClellan
and his partisans, and circulated in the public. The truth is, that
when Stanton became McClellan's superior, Stanton tried in every
friendly and devoted way to awake McClellan to the sense of honor
and duty, to make him fight the enemy, and not dodge the fight under
false pretenses. Stanton implored McClellan to get ready, and not to
evade from day to day; and only when utterly disappointed by
McClellan's hesitation and untruthfulness, Stanton, so to say, in
despair, forced McClellan to action. Stanton was a friend of
McClellan, but sacrificed friendship to the sacred duty of a
patriot.
_April 21._--England plays as false in Europe as she does here.
England makes a noise about Poland, and after a few speeches will
give up Poland. More than forty years of experience satisfied me
about England's political honesty. In 1831, Englishmen made
speeches, the Russian fought and finally overpowered us. England
hates Russia as it hates this country, and fears them both. I hope a
time will come when America and Russia joining hands will throttle
that perfidious England. Were only Russia represented here in her
tendencies, convictions and aspirations! What a brilliant, elevated,
dominating position could have been that of a Russian diplomat here,
during this civil war. England and France would have been always in
his _ante-chambre_.
_April 21._--Letter-writing is the fashion of the day. Halleck
treads into Seward's footsteps or shoes. Halleck thunders to Union
leagues; to meetings; it reads splendidly, had only Halleck not
contributed to increase the "perils" of the country. Letter-writing
is to atone for deadly blunders. The same with Seward as with
Halleck. If Halleck would not have been fooled by Beauregard, if
Halleck had taken Corinth instead of approaching the city by
parallels distant _five miles_; the "peril" would no longer exist.
_April 21._--Foreign and domestic papers herald that the honorable
Sanford, United States Minister to Belgium, and residing in
Brussels, has given a great and highly admired diplomatic dinner,
etc., etc. I hope the Sewing machine was in honor and exposed as a
_surtout_ on the banquet's table, and that only the guano-claim
successfully recovered from Venezuela, and other equally innocent
pickings paid the piper. _Vive la bagatelle_, and Seward's _alter
ego_ at the European courts.
_April 22._--I so often meet men pushed into the background of
affairs; men young, intelligent, active, clear-sighted, in one word,
fitted out with all mental and intellectual requisites for
commanders, leaders, pilots and helmsmen of every kind; and
nevertheless twenty times a day I hear repeated the question: "Whom
shall we put? we have no men."--It is wonderful that such men cannot
cut their way through the apathy of public opinion, which seems to
prefer old hacks for dragging a steam engine instead of putting to
it good, energetic engineers, and let the steam work. Young men!
young men, it is likewise your fault; you ought to assert
yourselves; you ought to act, and push the fogies aside, instead of
subsiding into useless criticism, and useless consideration for
_experienced_ narrow-mindedness, for ignorance or for helplessness.
In times as trying as ours are, men and not counterfeits are needed.
_April 22._--In Europe, they wonder at our manner of carrying on the
war, at our General-in-Chief, who, in the eyes and the judgment of
European generals, acts without a plan and without _an ensemble_;
they wonder at the groping and shy general policy, and nevertheless
a policy full of contradictions. The Europeans thus astonished are
true friends of the North, of the emancipation, and are competent
judges.
_April 22._--I hear that Hooker intends to make a kind of feint
against Lee. Feints are old, silly tricks, almost impossible with
large armies, and therefore very seldom feints are successful. Lee
is not to be caught in this way, and the less so as he has as many
spies as inhabitants, in, and around Hooker's camp. To cross the
river on a well selected point, and, Hooker-like, attack the
surprised enemy is the thing.
_April 22._--"Loyalty, loyalty," resounds in speeches, is re-echoed
in letters, in newspapers. Well, Loyalty, but to whom? I hope not to
the person of any president, but to the ever-living principle of
human liberty. Next eureka is, "the administration must be
sustained." Of course, but not because it intrinsically deserves it,
but because no better one can be had, and no radical change can be
effected.
_April 22._--The English Cabinet takes in sails, and begins to show
less impudence in the violation of neutral duties. Lord John
Russell's letter to the constructors of the piratical ships.
Certainly Mr. Seward will claim the credit of having brought England
to terms by his eloquent dispatches. Sumner may dispute with Seward
the influence on English fogies. In reality, the bitter and
exasperated feeling of the people frightened England.
_April 24._--It is repulsive to read how the press exults that the
famine in the South is our best ally. Well! I hate the rebels, but I
would rather that the superiority of brains may crush them, and not
famine. The rebels manfully supporting famine, give evidence of
heroism; and why is it in such disgusting cause!
_April 23._--Senator Sumner emphatically receives and admits into
church and communion, the freshly to emancipation converted General
Thomas, Adjutant General, now organizing Africo-American regiments
in the Mississippi valley. Better _late than never_, for such
Thomases, Hallecks, etc., only I doubt if a Thomas will ever become
a Paul.
_April 24._--Our State Department does not enjoy a high
consideration abroad. I see this from public diplomatic acts, and
from private letters. I am sure that Mr. Dayton has found this out
long ago, and I suppose so did Mr. Adams. Of course not a Sanford.
If the State Department had not at its back twenty-two millions of
Americans, foreign Cabinets would treat us--God, alone, knows how.
_April 24._--I hope to live long enough to see the end of this war,
and then to disentangle my brains from the pursuits which now fill
them. Then goodbye, O, international laws, with your customs and
rules. England handled them for centuries, as the wolf with the lamb
at the spring. When I witness the confusion and worse, here, I seem
to see--_en miniature_--reproduced some parts of the Byzantine
times. All cracks but not the people, and to ---- I am indebted that
my brains hold out.
_April 24._--What a confusion Burnside's order No. 8 reveals; the
president willing, unwilling, shifting, and time rapidly running on.
_April 24._--Senator Sumner, without being called as he ought to
have been--to give advice, discovered the Peterhoff case. The
Senator laid before the President, all the authorities bearing on
the case, showed by them to the President, that the mail was not to
be returned to the English Consul, but lawfully ought to be opened
by the Prize Court. The Senator so far convinced the President, that
Mr. Lincoln, next morning at once violated the statutes, and through
Mr. Seward, instructed the District Attorney to instruct the Court
to give up the mail unopened to England.
Brave and good Sumner exercises influence on Mr. Lincoln.
_April 24._--Every one has his word to say about civilized warfare,
about international warfare, laws of war, etc. In principle, no laws
of public war are applicable to rebels, and if they are, it is only
on the grounds of expediency or of humanity. Laws of international
warfare are applicable to independent nations, and not to rebels.
Has England ever treated the Irish according to the laws of
international warfare? Has England considered Napper Tandy and his
aids as belligerents? The word _war_ in its legal or international
sense ought to have been suppressed at the start from the official,
national vocabulary; to suppress a rebellion is not to _wage a war_.
_April 25._--When the bloody tornado shall pass over, and the normal
condition be restored, then only will begin to germinate the seeds
of good and of evil, seeds so broadcast sown by this rebellion. All
will become either recast or renovated, the plough of war having
penetrated to the core of the people. Customs, habits, notions,
modes of thinking and of appreciating events and men, political,
social, domestic morals will be changed or modified. The men
baptized in blood and fire will shake all. Many of them endowed with
all the rays of manhood, others lawless and reckless. Many domestic
hearths will be upturned, extinct, destroyed; the women likewise
passing through the terrible probation. Many women remained true to
the loftiest womanhood, others became carried away by the impure
turmoil. All this will tell and shape out the next generations.
I ardently hope that this war will breed and educate a population
strong, clear-sighted, manly, decided in ideas and in action; and
such a population will be scattered all over this extensive country.
Men who stood the test of battles, will not submit to the village,
township, or to politicians at large, but will judge for themselves,
and will take the lead. These men went into the field a common iron
ore, they will return steel. The shock will tear the scales from the
people's eyes, and the people easily will discern between pure grain
and chaff. I am sure that a man who fought for the great cause, who
brought home honorable wounds and scars, whose limbs are rotting on
fields of battle; such a man will become an authority; and
death-knell to the abject race of politicians; the days of shallow,
cold, rhetors are numbered, and vanity and selfishness will be
doomed. _Non vobis, non vobis--sed populo...._
_April 25._--Mr. Seward is elated, triumphant, grand. Emigration
from Europe, evoked, beckoned by him is to replace the population
lost in the war.
What is to be more scorned? Seward's heartless cruelty or his
reckless ignorance, to believe that such a numerous emigration will
pour in, as to at once make up for those of whom at least one third
were butchered by flippancy of Mr. Seward's policy to which Lincoln
became committed.
_April 26._--The people are bound onwards _per aspera ad astra_: the
giddy brained helmsmen, military and civil chiefs and commanders may
hurl the people in an opposite direction.
_April 26._--Whoever will dispassionately read the various statutes
published by the 37th Congress; will speak of its labors as I do,
and the future historian will find in those statutes the best light
by which to comprehend and to appreciate the prevailing temper of
the people.
_April 27._--Rhetors and some abolitionists of the small church--not
Wendell Phillips--still are satisfied with mistakes and disasters,
because _otherwise slavery would not have been destroyed_. If they
have a heart, it is a clump of ice, and their brains are common
jelly. With men at the head who would have had faith and a lofty
consciousness of their task, the rebellion and slavery could have
been both crushed in the year 1861, or any time in 1862. Any one but
an idiot ought to have seen at the start, that as the rebels fight
to maintain slavery, in striking slavery you strike at the rebels.
The blood spilt because of the narrow-mindedness of the leaders,
that blood will cry to heaven, whatever be the absolution granted by
the rhetors and by the small church.
_April 27._--Mr. Seward went on a visit to the army, dragging with
him some diplomats. The army was not to forget the existence of the
Secretary of State, this foremost Union-saviour, and the candidate
for the next Presidency. Others say that Seward ran away to dodge
the Peterhoff case.
_April 27._--How the politicians of the _Times_ and of the
_Chronicle_ lustily attack--NOW--McClellan. If I am well informed,
it was the editor of the _Chronicle_, himself a leading politician,
and influential in both Houses, who instigated Lovejoy, Member of
Congress, to move resolutions in favor of McClellan for the battle
at Williamsburgh, where McClellan did what he could to have his own
army destroyed.
_April 28._--Mr. Seward elaborated for the President a paper in the
Peterhoff case--and, _horribile dictu_, as I am told--even the
President found the argument, or whatever else it was, very, very
light. The President sent for the chief clerk to explain to him the
unintelligible document--and more darkness prevailed. Bravo, Mr.
Seward! your name and your place in the history of the times are
firmly nailed!
_April 28._--The time will come, and even I may yet witness it, when
these deep wounds struck by the rebellion will be healed; when even
the scars of blows dealt to the people by such Lincolns, Sewards,
McClellans, Hallecks, the other _minor gens_, will be invisible--and
this great people, steeled by events, will be more powerful than it
ever was. Then the Monroe doctrine will be applied in all its
sternness and rigor, and from pole to pole no European power will
defile this continent. The so-called Americo-Hispano-Latin races
humbugged by Europe, will have found how cursed is _any whatever_
European influence. The main land and the Isles must be purified
therefrom. Will any European government, power, or statesman permit
the United States to acquire even the most barren rock on the
European continent? The American continent is equal, if not more to
Europe, and the degrading stigma of European colonies and
possessions must be blotted from this American soil.
_April 29._--The President appoints a day of fasting and prayer.
Well! it is not for the people to fast and to pray, but for the
evil-doers. Lead on, Mr. Lincoln, attended by Seward and
Halleck--all in sackcloth and ashes.
_April 29._--The President's and General Martindale's proclamations
officially recognize the existence of God. It is consoling, and
knocks down the far-famed _Deo erexit Voltaire_.
_April 29._--To the right and to the left I hear praise of Mr. Chase
as the great financier. Well he may be praised, having in his hand
thousands and thousands of cows to be milked. The _financier_ is the
people, and prevents Chase from ruining the country.
_April 29._--A Richmond paper calls McClellan a compound of lies and
of cowardice. McClellan, the fetish of Copperheads and of
peace-makers. The Richmond paper must have some special reasons
which justify this stern appreciation.
_April 30._--The _World_, a paper born in barter, in mud and in
shamelessness, condemns General Wadsworth's name to eternal infamy.
What a court of honor the _World's_ scribblers! The one a hireling
of the brothers Woods, and sold by them in the lump to some other
Copperhead financier; the other a pants and overcoats stealing beau.
The rest must be similar.
_April 30._--The abomination of slavery makes such a splendid field
to any rhetor attacking that curse. Were it not so, how many rhetors
would be abolitionists?