Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 Part 16

Mirmidons, race feconde, enfin nous commandons.

Some say that the generals who let Lee off, intended not to humiliate their former chief and pet McClellan.

July 20.-Cavalry wanted. Stables and corrals filled with horses, but no saddles. No saddles in this most industrious country! No brains in the Quartermasters or in those to whom it belongs. And perhaps no will, and perhaps no honesty. No saddles! Oh! I am sure it is n.o.body's fault; no workmen are to be found, and no leather, and no men to look after the country's good. That is the rub.

July 20.-Captain Collins, commanding a United States man-of-war, captures an English blockade-runner near an isolated shoal somewhere in the vicinity of Bermuda. England a.s.serts that the shoal is a sh.o.r.e, and that the maritime league is violated. Mr. Seward at once yields, Neptune defends as he always does, the rights of the national Tritons, and of the national flag. The supreme power sides with Seward, and an order is given to reprimand Collins or something like it: it is done, and the prize-court decides that Captain Collins has made a lawful capture. I hope Collins will be consoled, and light his segar with the reprimand.

The future historian will duly ponder and establish Mr. Seward's claims to the salvage of the country.

July 20.-From all that I learn, Meade has a better and larger army than Lee; oh, may only Meade establish that he has the biggest brains of the two.

July 20.-From time to time, I read the various statutes issued by the last Congress, and am strengthened in my opinion that Congress served the people well. The various statutes are the triumph of legislation. They are clear, precise, well-worded results of patriotic, devoted, far-seeing and undaunted minds and brains. All glory to the majority of the Thirty-seventh Congress!

July 21.-A manly and patriotic letter from James T. Brady is published in the papers. Such Democrats, Irishmen and lawyers, like Brady, honor the party, the nationality, and the profession.

July 21.-A mystery surrounds the appointment of Grant to the command of the fated Potomac army. Yes and no say the helmsmen. The truth seems to be, it was offered to Grant, and he respectfully refused to accept it. If so, it is an evidence in favor of Grant. To give up glory and devoted companions in arms, to give all this up for the sake of running into the unknown, and into the jaws of the still breathing McClellanism, and into the vicinity of the central telegraphic station! Grant believes in volunteers; and for this reason it is to be regretted that he refused to correct the West Point notions.

July 21.-The draft occasions much bad blood, and evokes violent dissatisfaction. The draft is a dire necessity; but it could have been avoided if time, men, and the people's enthusiasm had not been so sacrilegiously wasted. The three hundred dollar clause is not a happy invention, and its omission would have given a better character to that law.

July 21.-If the New York traitors succeed in preventing the draft, then they will riot against taxes; after breaking down the taxes, they will riot against the greenbacks, against the emanc.i.p.ation, and finally force the reconstruction of the Union with the murderous rebel chiefs in the senatorial chairs, according to the Seward-Mercier-Richmond programme. Any one can see in the Cain-Copperhead newspapers of New York, of Boston, of Philadelphia, and in the letters and speeches of those matricides, what are their aims, and how their plans are laid out.

July 21.-Again I am most positively a.s.sured that some time ago a friendly offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between W. H. Seward and Edwin Stanton. The high powers were represented by Thurlow Weed and Morgan for Seward, and the virtuous, lachrymose, white-cravated Whiting acted for Stanton. I was told that this alliance drove Watson, (a.s.sistant Secretary,) from the War Department. This would be infernal, if true. I know that no Weed whatever could approach such a man as Watson; but Watson a.s.sured me that he returns back, and I cannot believe that Stanton could consent to be thus sold.

July 22.-Honorable, virtuous, tear-shedding, jockey-dressing Whiting wanted to make a trip to Europe. Sharp and acute, the great expounder found out at once that Mr. Seward is one of the greatest and n.o.blest patriots of all times. Reward followed. Whiting goes to Europe on a special mission-to dine, if he is invited, with all the great and small men to whom Mr. Adams or Mr. Dayton may introduce him, and to convince everybody in Europe that the Sewards, the Whitings, &c., are the creme de la creme of the American people. Vive la bagatelle.

July 22.-How putrescent is all around! But it is not the nation, not the people. And as the sun raises above the darkest and heaviest vapors, so in America the spirit of mankind, incarnated in and animating the people, towers above the filth of politicians, of cabinet-makers, of presidential-peddlers, etc. Look to the ma.s.ses to find consolation. How splendidly acts Ma.s.sachusetts and New England's sons! And what free State is not New England's son? The youth of Ma.s.sachusetts are almost all in the field-the rich and the poor, those of the best social standing, and of the genuine good blood and standing; scholars and mechanics, all of them shouldered the musket.

July 23.-How strangely and how slowly Meade manuvres! It looks McClellan-like. O, G.o.d of battles, warm and inspire Meade!

July 23.-Only boys in the corps of invalids. It has its good. For scores of years to come, these invalids will be the living legend of this treasonable, matricidal rebellion, and of the atrocious misconduct of our helmsmen. I hope that when returned home, these invalids will be as many extirpators of all kinds of Weeds in their respective towns.h.i.+ps and villages. They will become the lights of the new era.

July 23.-Were it not for the murdered, these New York riots could be considered welcome. The rioting cannibals, and their prompters and defenders showed their hands. No one in his senses can now doubt how heartily and devotedly Jeff Davis was served by his hirelings among the Copperhead leaders and among the New York Copperhead press. The cannibals cheered for McClellan, and the Administration has neither enough courage nor self respect to put that fetish on the retired list.

In the old, flouris.h.i.+ng times of Romanism and papacy, such a Most Eminent Hughes would long ago have been suspended by the Holy See. The Most Eminent's standing among the continental European Episcopacy is not eminent at all, whatever be Mr. Seward's opinion. The Most Eminent is a curious observer of the canons, of the papal bulls, and of other clerical and episcopal paraphernalia. The spirit animating the Most Eminent is not the spirit of the Roman Sapienzia. I well recollect what I heard lectured in that Roman papal university.

July 24.-As a dark and ominous cloud, Lee with his army hovers around Was.h.i.+ngton, keeps the Shenandoah valley, and may again cross over to the c.u.mberland valley. It seems that the generals whose council-of-war allowed Lee to recross the river unhurt, believed that Lee with all speed would run to Richmond; and now they hang to his brow and eye.

The crime of Williamsport bears fruit. Never, never in this or in the other life, can the perpetrators of the Williamsport crime atone for it.

It may come that the western armies and generals will bring the civil war to an end, the Potomac army all the time marching and countermarching between the Potomac and the Rappahannock. And such a splendid army, such heroic soldiers and officers, to be sacrificed to the ignorant stubbornness of sham military science!

July 25.-I positively learn that Gilmore has scarcely ten thousand men, infantry, and is to storm the various forts and defenses around the Charleston harbor. If Gilmore succeeds, then it is a wonder. But in sound valuation, Gilmore has not men enough to organize columns of attack so that the one shall follow the other within a short, very short supporting distance. And the losses will almost hourly reduce Gilmore's small force. I dread repulse and heavy losses. Some one at the head-quarters deserves to be quartered for such a distribution of troops. With the immense resources and means of transportation, it is so easy to send twenty thousand troops to Gilmore, attack, make short work of it, and then carry the troops back to where they belonged. But to concentrate and act in ma.s.ses is not the credo of the-not yet quartered-head-quarters.

July 26.-Old-but not slow-Welles again gives to Seward a lesson of good-behavior, of sound sense, and of mastery of international laws. The prize courts side with Welles. Because Neptune has a white wig and beard, he is considered slow, when in reality he is active, unflinching, and progressive.

July 26.-O, could I only exclaim, Exegi monumentum aere perennius, to the n.o.ble, the patriotic, and the good, as well as to the helpless, the selfish, and the counterfeits.

July 27.-Philadelphia. Flags in all the streets, volunteers parading and drilling. Prosperity, activity and devotion permeate the country. So at least I am led to believe. All this is so refres.h.i.+ng, after witnessing in Was.h.i.+ngton such strenuous efforts how not to do it.

Bad news. I learn that Gilmore is repulsed. When the forlorn hope entered Fort Wagner, no support promptly came, and the heroes, black and white, were ma.s.sacred or expelled. Gilmore ought to have been more cautious, and not to have undertaken an operation which was on its outside stamped with impossibility. Perhaps Gilmore obeyed peremptory orders. Who gave them?

Lee's army escapes through Chester Gap, and thus we have not cut the rebels from Richmond, and now they are ahead of us. Again out-manuvred! and n.o.body's fault, only the campaign prolonged ad infinitum. Perhaps it is in the programme!

July 28.-Philadelphia. The petty, narrow, school conceit imbibed in the West Point nursery, is the stumbling-block barring everywhere the expansion of a healthy and vigorous activity. I listened to the heaviest absurdities and fogyism on military affairs oracularly preached by one of the great West Pointers on duty here.

July 31.-Long Branch. Away from personal contact, even from the view of politicians, of plotters, of lickspittles. How refres.h.i.+ng, how invigorating, how soothing!

Mr. Seward, with a due tail, visits Fortress Monroe. What for? Is it to organize some underground road to reunion on the Mercier-Seward-Richmond programme?

One well-informed writes me that the last programme of Lincoln, Halleck and Meade is, that the army of the Potomac is to keep Lee at bay, but not to attack. If true, how well designed to give time to Lee to do what he likes, to reorganize, to send away his troops where he may please, to call them back-in one word to be fully at his ease on our account. Will this country ever escape the tutors.h.i.+p of sham science?

July 31.-Long Branch. Seward's concession policy towards France bears fruit in Mexico. Of course the Decembriseur outwitted the Weed-Albany-Auburn politician statesman. But it is not the ignorant foreign policy which strengthened and strengthens the French policy in Mexico. It is the blunders, the tergiversations, the gropings, and the crimes of our internal domestic policy, which, protracting the war, allows the French conspirator to murder the Mexicans.

July 31. L. B.-So the Decembriseur amuses himself in creating an Imperial throne in Mexico for some European princely idiot or intriguer. All right. I have confidence in the Mexicans. The future Emperor, even if established for some time on the cus.h.i.+on of treason propped by French bayonets, that manikin before short or long will be Iturbidised. Further: I have confidence in the French people. The upper crust is pestilential. Bonapartists, lickspittles, lackeys and incarnations of all imaginary corruptions compose that upper crust. But I would bet a fortune, had I one, that in the course of the next five years, the Decembriseur and his Prince Imperial will be visible at Barnum's, and that some shoddy grandee from 5th Avenue, will issue cards inviting to meet the Empress Eugenie.

AUGUST, 1863.

Stanton - Twenty Thousand - Canadians - Peterhoff - Coffey - Initiation - Electioneering - Reports - Grant - McClellan - Belligerent Rights - Menagerie - Watson - Jury - Democrats - Bristles - "Where is Stanton?" - "Fight the monster" - Chasiana - Luminaries - Ballistic - Political Economy, etc., etc., etc.

August 2. Long Branch.-The organs of all shades and of all gradations of ill-wishers to the cause of the North, and to that of Emanc.i.p.ation, the secret friends of Jeff Davis, and the open supporters of McClellan are untiring in their open, slanderous, treacherous accusations of Stanton; others spread sanctimoniously perfidious suggestions against the Secretary of War, and so does the National Intelligencer, this foremost Whig-Conservative, double or treble-faced organ. Stanton is called to account for all mishaps, mismanagement, disasters and disgraces which befall our armies between the Rio Grande and the Potomac. Such accusations, to a certain degree, could be justified if the Secretary of War were clothed with the same powers, and therefore with the same responsibilities as is the case in European governments.

But every one knows that here the war machinery is very complicated, because wheels turn within wheels. The Secretary of War is not alone to answer and he is not exclusively responsible for the appointment of good, middling, or wholly bad generals and commanders. Every one knows it. Stanton may have all the possible shortcomings and faults with which his enemies so richly clothe him; one thing is certain, that Stanton advocated and always advocates fighting, and Stanton furnishes the generals and commanders with all means and resources at the country's and the department's disposition. If many respectable men are to be trusted, Stanton never interferes with intrinsic military operations, never orders or insinuates, or dictates to the commanders of our armies where and in what way they are to get at the enemy and to fight him. As far as I know Stanton keeps aloof from strategy.

Stanton is insincere and untruthful, say his enemies. Granted. I never found a man in power to be otherwise in personal questions or relations. It is almost impossible for the power-holders to be sincere and truthful.

Trust in thy sword, Rather than prince's (president's) word; Trust in fortuna's sinister, Rather than prince's minister.

But Stanton is truthful and sincere to the cause, and that is all that I want from him. Stanton's alleged malice against McClellan had the n.o.blest and the most patriotic sources, which, of course, could not be understood or appreciated by Stanton's revilers.

The organs of treason and of infamy refer always to McClellan. O race, knitted of the devils excrements mixed with his saliva, [see Talleyrand about Thiers] your treason is only equal to your impudence and ignorance. If in February, 1862, Stanton had not urged McClellan to move, probably the Potomac Army would have spent all the year in its tents before Was.h.i.+ngton. McClellan's henchmen and minions thrusted and still thrust the grossest lies down the throat of a certain public, eager to gulp slander as sugar plums. McClellan's stupidity at Yorktown and in the Chickahominy is vindicated by his crew with the following counter accusation: that all disasters have been generated because McDowell with his twenty thousand men did not join McClellan. If McClellan had in him the soldiers.h.i.+p of a non-commissioned officer, on his knees he ought to implore his crew not to expose him in this way. When a general has in hand about one hundred and ten thousand men, as McClellan had on entering the peninsula, and accomplishes nothing, then it is a proof that he, the general, is wholly unable and ignorant how to handle large ma.s.ses. If McClellan could not manage one hundred thousand men, still less would he have been able to manage the twenty thousand more of McDowell's corps.

The stupidity of attempting to invest Richmond is beyond words, and for such an operation several hundred thousand men would have been necessary. [Spoke of it in Vol. I.] If twenty thousand men arrive not at a certain day or hour when a battle is raging, most surely this failure may occasion a defeat-Grouchy at Waterloo-but in McClellan's Chickahominy operations, twenty thousand men more would have served only still more plainly to expose his incapacity, and to be a prey to fevers and diseases.

The bulk of the rebel army in Richmond was always less numerous than McClellan's; the rebels always understood to have more troops than had McClellan when they attacked him. During that whole cursed and ignominious (for McClellan) Chickahominy campaign, McClellan never fought at once more of his men than about thirty thousand. It was not the absence of twenty thousand men that prevented a commander of one hundred thousand from engaging more of his troops, and for quickly supporting such corps as were attacked by the enemy.

August 3: L. B.-The Colonists, that is, the appendixes of England, as the Canadians, the Nova Scotians, and of any other colonial dignity and name, together with their great statesmen, certain Howes and Johnsons, etc. etc. etc. agitate; they are in trances like little fish out of water. They find it so pleasant to seize an occasion to look like something great. Poor frogs! trying to blow themselves into leviathans. Their whelpish snarling at the North reminds one of little curs snarling at a mastiff. How can these colonists imagine that a royal prince of England could reside among something which is as indefinite as are colonists-something neither fish nor flesh.

August 3.-The Evening Post contains a letter on the difference between the behavior of Union men in Missouri during the treasonable riots in St. Louis in the Spring of 1861, and the conduct of the Union men in New York during the recent riots. But the Saint Louis patriot is silent-has forgotten the immortal Lyons who saved that city and its patriots, who saved Missouri. (General Scott insisted upon courtmartialing Lyons.)

Also, have you already forgotten the foremost among heroes and patriots, and whose loss is more telling now than it was in 1861. Forgotten one of the purest and n.o.blest victims of Was.h.i.+ngton blindness, of General Scott's unmilitary policy and conduct. Forgotten the true son of the people? But O Lyons! thy name will be venerated by coming generations.

August 4: L. B.-The Cliques.

a The worst, and the womb of all evils is the Weed-Seward clique. Around it group contractors, jobbers, shoddy, and all kinds of other social impurities.

b The ambitious, intriguing, selfish, narrow-minded West Point clique.

c The not brave, not patriotic, and freedom-hating, unintelligent McClellan clique.