Chapter III: Part 3

2d. The idea is preposterous to try to have a large thus-called regular army. A small number, fifteen to twenty thousand men, divided among several hundreds of thousands of volunteers, would be as a drop of water in a lake. Besides, this war is to be decided by the great masses of the volunteers, and it is uncivic and unpatriotic to in any way nourish the wickedly-assumed discrimination between regulars and volunteers.

3d. Good non-commissioned officers and corporals constitute the sole, sound, and easy articulations of a regiment. Any one who ever was in action is aware of this truth. With good non-commissioned officers, even ignorant lieutenants do very little harm. The volunteer regiments ought to have as many good sergeants and corporals as possible.

4th. To provide for this want, and for reasons mentioned above, the relics of the regular army ought to be dissolved. Let us have one army, as the enemy has.

5th. All the rank and file of the army ought to be made at once corporals and sergeants, and be distributed as much as possible among the volunteers.

6th. The non-commissioned regulars ought to be made commissioned officers, and with officers of all grades be distributed and merged in the one great army.

For the first time since the armaments, I enjoyed a genuine military view. McClellan, surrounded as a general ought to be, went to see the army. It looks martial. The city, likewise, has a more martial look than it had all the time under Scott. It seems that a young, strong hand holds the ribbons. God grant that McClellan may preserve his western vigor and activity, and may not become softened and dissolved by these Washington evaporations. If he does, if he follows the routine, he will become as impotent as others before him. Young man, beware of Washington's corrupt but flattering influences. To the camp! to the camp! A tent is better for you than a handsome house. The tent, the fumes of bivouacs, inspired the Fredericks, the Napoleons, and Washingtons.

Up to this day they make more history in Secessia than here. Jeff. Davis overshadows Lincoln. Jeff. Davis and his gang of malefactors are pushed into the whirlpool of action by the nature of their crime; here, our leaders dread action, and grope. The rebels have a clear, decisive, almost palpable aim; but here * *

AUGUST, 1861.

The truth about Bull Run -- The press staggers -- The Blairs
alone firm -- Scott's military character -- Seward -- Mr. Lincoln
reads the Herald -- The ubiquitous lobbyist -- Intervention --
Congress adjourns -- The administration waits for something to
turn up -- Wade -- Lyon is killed -- Russell and his shadow --
The Yankees take the loan -- Bravo, Yankees! -- McClellan works
hard -- Prince Napoleon -- Manassas fortifications a humbug --
Mr. Seward Improves -- Old Whigism -- McClellan's powers enlarged
-- Jeff. Davis makes history -- Fremont emancipates in Missouri
-- The Cabinet.

The truth about Bull Run will, perhaps, only reach the people when it becomes reduced to an historical use. I gather what I am sure is true.

About three weeks ago General McDowell took upon himself the responsibility to attack the enemy concentrated at Manassas. Deciding upon this step, McDowell showed the determination of a true soldier, and a cool, intelligent courage. According to rumors permeating the whole North; rumors originated by secessionists in and around Washington, and in various parts of the free States; rumors gulped by a part of the press, and never contradicted, but rather nursed, at headquarters, Manassas was a terrible, unknown, mysterious something; a bugbear, between a fortress made by art and a natural fastness, whose approaches were defended for miles by numberless masked batteries, and which was filled by countless thousands of the most ferocious warriors. Such was Manassas in public opinion when McDowell undertook to attack this formidable American Torres Vedras, and this with the scanty and almost unorganized means in men and artillery allotted to him by the senile wisdom of General Scott. General McDowell obtained the promise that Beauregard alone was to be before him. To fulfil this promise, General Scott was to order Patterson to keep Johnston, and a movement was to be made on the James River, so as to prevent troops coming from Richmond to Manassas. As it was already said, Patterson, a special favorite of General Scott, kindly allowed Johnston to save Beauregard, and Jeff. Davis with troops from Richmond likewise was on the spot. McDowell planned his plan very skilfully; no European general would have done better, and I am sure that such will be the verdict hereafter. Some second-rate mistakes in the execution did not virtually endanger its success; but, to say the truth, McDowell and his army were defeated by the imbecility of the supreme military authority. Imbecility stabbed them in the back.

One part of the press, stultified and stupefied, staggered under the blow; the other part showed its utter degradation by fawning on Scott and attacking the Congress, or its best part. The Evening Post staggered not; its editors are genuine, laborious students, and, above all, students of history. The editors of the other papers are politicians; some of them are little, others are big villains. All, intellectually, belong to the class called in America more or less well-read men; information acquired by reading, but which in itself is not much.

The brothers Blair, almost alone, receded not, and put the defeat where it belonged--at the feet of General Scott.

The _rudis indigestaque moles_, torn away from Scott's hands, already begins to acquire the shape of an army. Thanks to the youth, the vigor, and the activity of McClellan.

General Scott throws the whole disaster on politicians, and abuses them. How ungrateful. His too lofty pedestal is almost exclusively the work of politicians. I heard very, very few military men in America consider Scott a man of transcendent military capacity. Years ago, during the Crimean campaign, I spent some time at West Point in the society of Cols. Robert Lee, Walker, Hardee, then in the service of the United States, and now traitors; not one of them classed Scott much higher above what would be called a respectable capacity; and of which, as they said, there are many, many in every European army.

If one analyzes the Mexican campaign, it will be found that General Scott had, comparatively, more officers than soldiers; the officers young men, full of vigor, and in the first gush of youth, who therefore mightily facilitated the task of the commander. Their names resound to-day in both the camps.

Further, generals from the campaign in Mexico assert that three of the won battles were fought against orders, which signifies that in Mexico youth had the best of cautious senility. It was according to the law of nature, and for it it was crowned with success.

Mr. Seward has a very active intellect, an excellent man for current business, easy and clear-headed for solving any second-rate complications; but as for his initiative, that is another question. Hitherto his initiative does not tell, but rather confuses. Then he sustains Scott, some say, for future political capital. If so it is bad; worse still if Mr. Seward sustains Scott on the ground of high military fitness, as it is impossible to admit that Mr. Seward knows anything about military affairs, or that he ever _studied_ the description _of any battle_. At least, I so judge from his conversation.

Mr. Lincoln has already the fumes of greatness, and looks down on the press, reads no paper, that dirty traitor the New York Herald excepted. So, at least, it is generally stated.

The enemies of Seward maintain that he, Seward, drilled Lincoln into it, to make himself more necessary.

Early, even before the inauguration, McDowell suggested to General Scott to concentrate in Washington the small army, the depots scattered in Texas and New Mexico. Scott refused, and this is called a general! God preserve any cause, any people who have for a savior a Scott, together with his civil and military partisans.

If it is not direct, naked treason which prevails among the nurses, and the various advisers of the people, imbecility, narrow-mindedness, do the same work. Further, the way in which many leech, phlebotomize, cheat and steal the people's treasury, is even worse than rampant treason. I heard a Boston shipbuilder complain to Sumner that the ubiquitous lobbyist, Thurlow Weed, was in his, the builder's, way concerning some contracts to be made in the Navy Department, etc., etc. Will it turn out that the same men who are to-day at the head of affairs will be the men who shall bring to an end this revolt or revolution? It ought not to be, as it is contrary to logic, and to human events.

Lincoln alone must forcibly remain, he being one of the incarnated formulas of the Constitution, endowed with a specific, four years' lasting existence.

The Americans are nervous about foreign intervention. It is difficult to make them understand that no intervention is to be, and none can be made. Therein the press is as silly as the public at large. Certainly France does not intend any meddling or intervention; of this I am sure. Neither does England seriously.

Next, if these two powers should even thirst for such an injustice, they have no means to do it. If they break our blockades, we make war, and exclude them from the Northern ports, whose commerce is more valuable to them than that of the South. I do not believe the foreign powers to be forgetful of their interest; they know better their interests than the Americans.

The Congress adjourned, abandoning, with a confidence unparalleled in history, the affairs of the country in the hands of the not over far-sighted administration. The majority of the Congress are good, and fully and nobly represent the pure, clear and sure aspirations, instincts, nay, the clear-sightedness of the people. In the Senate, as in the House, are many, very many true men, and men of pure devotion, and of clear insight into the events; men superior to the administration; such are, above all, those senators and representatives who do not attempt or aim to sit on a pedestal before the public, before the people, but wish the thing to be done for the thing itself. But for _the formula_ which chains their hands, feet, and intellect, the Congress contained several men who, if they could act, would finish the secession in a double-quick time. But the whole people move in the treadmill of formulas. It is a pity that they are not inspired by the axiom of the Roman legist, _scire leges non est hoc verba earum tenere, sed vim ac potestatem_. Congress had positive notions of what ought to be done; the administration, Micawber-like, looks for that something which may turn up, and by expedients patches all from day to day.

What may turn up nobody can foresee; matter alone without mind cannot carry the day. The people have the mind, but the official legal leaders a very small portion of it. Come what will, I shall not break down; I shall not give up the holy principle. If crime, rebellion, _sauvagerie_, triumph, it will be, not because the people failed, but it will be because mediocrities were at the helm. Concessions, compromises, any patched-up peace, will for a century degrade the name of America. Of course, I cannot prevent it; but events have often broken but not bent me. I may be burned, but I cannot be melted; so if secesh succeeds, I throw in a cesspool my document of naturalization, and shall return to Europe, even if working my passage.

It is maddening to read all this ignoble clap-trap, written by European wiseacres concerning this country. Not one knows the people, not one knows the accidental agencies which neutralize what is grand and devoted in the people.

Some are praised here as statesmen and leaders. A statesman, a leader of such a people as are the Americans, and in such emergencies, must be a _man_ in the fullest and loftiest comprehension. All the noblest criteria of moral and intellectual manhood ought to be vigorously and harmoniously developed in him. He ought to have a deep and lively moral sense, and the moral perception of events and of men around him. He ought to have large brains and a big heart,--an almost all-embracing comprehension of the inside and outside of events,--and when he has those qualities, then only the genius of foresight will dwell on his brow. He ought to forget himself wholly and unconditionally; his reason, his heart, his soul ought to merge in the principles which lifted him to the elevated station. Who around me approaches this ideal? So far as I know, perhaps Senator Wade.

I wait and wait for the eagle which may break out from the White House. Even the burning fire of the national disaster at Bull Run left the egg unhatched. _Utinam sim falsus_, but it looks as if the slowest brains were to deal with the greatest events of our epoch. Mr. Lincoln is a pure-souled, well-intentioned patriot, and this nobody doubts or contests. But is that all which is needed in these terrible emergencies?

Lyon is killed,--the only man of initiative hitherto generated by events. We have bad luck. I shall put on mourning for at least six weeks. They ought to weep all over the land for the loss of such a man; and he would not have been lost if the administration had put him long ago in command of the West. O General Scott! Lyon's death can be credited to you. Lyon was obnoxious to General Scott, but the General's influence maintains in the service all the doubtful capacities and characters. The War Department, as says Potter, bristles with secessionists, and with them the old, rotten, respectable relics, preserved by General Scott, depress and nip in the bud all the young, patriotic, and genuine capacities.

As the sea corrodes the rocks against which it impinges, so egotism, narrow-mindedness, and immorality corrode the best human institutions. For humanity's sake, Americans, beware!

Always the clouds of harpies around the White House and the Departments,--such a generous ferment in the people, and such impurities coming to the surface!

Patronage is the stumbling stone here to true political action. By patronage the Cabinet keeps in check Congressmen, Senators, etc.

I learn from very good authority that when Russell, with his shadow, Sam. Ward, went South, Mr. Seward told Ward that he, Seward, intends not to force the Union on the Southern people, if it should be positively ascertained that that people does not wish to live in the Union! I am sorry for Seward. Such is not the feeling of the Northern people, and such notions must necessarily confuse and make vacillating Mr. Seward's--that is, Mr. Lincoln's--policy. Seward's patriotism and patriotic wishes and expectations prevent him from seeing things as they are.

The money men of Boston decided the conclusion of the first national loan. Bravo, my beloved Yankees! In finances as in war, as in all, not the financiering capacity of this or that individual, not any special masterly measures, etc., but the stern will of the people to succeed, provides funds and means, prevents bankruptcy, etc. The men who give money send an agent here to ascertain how many traitors are still kept in offices, and what are the prospects of energetic action by the administration.

McClellan is organizing, working hard. It is a pleasure to see him, so devoted and so young. After all, youth is promise. But already adulation begins, and may spoil him. It would be very, very saddening.

Prince Napoleon's visit stirs up all the stupidity of politicians in Europe and here. What a mass of absurdities are written on it in Europe, and even by Americans residing there. All this is more than equalled by the _solemn_ and _wise_ speculations of the Americans at home. Bar-room and coffee-house politicians are the same all over the world, the same, I am sure, in China and Japan. To suppose Prince Napoleon has any appetite whatever for any kind of American crown! Bah! He is brilliant and intelligent, and to suppose him to have such absurd plans is to offend him. But human and American gullibility are bottomless.

The Prince is a noble friend of the American cause, and freely speaks out his predilection. His sentiments are those of a true Frenchman, and not the sickly free-trade pro-slaveryism of Baroche with which he poisoned here the diplomatic atmosphere. Prince Napoleon's example will purify it.

As I was sure of it, the great Manassas fortifications are a humbug. It is scarcely a half-way fortified camp. So say the companions of the Prince, who, with him, visited Beauregard's army. So much for the great Gen. Scott, whom the companions of the Prince call a _magnificent ruin_.

The Prince spoke with Beauregard, and the Prince's and his companions' opinion is, that McDowell planned well his attack, but failed in the execution; and Beauregard thought the same. The Prince saw McClellan, and does not prize him so high as we do. These foreign officers say that most probably, on both sides, the officers will make most correct plans, as do pupils in military schools, but the execution will depend upon accident.

Mr. Seward shows every day more and more capacity in dispatching the regular, current, diplomatical business affairs. In all such matters he is now at home, as if he had done it for years and years. He is no more spread-eagle in his diplomatic relations; is easy and prompt in all secondary questions relating to secondary interests, and daily emerging from international complications.

Hitherto the war policy of the administration, as inspired and directed by Scott, was rather to receive blows, and then to try to ward them off. I expect young McClellan to deal blows, and thus to upturn the Micawber policy. Perhaps Gen. Scott believed that his name and example would awe the rebels, and that they would come back after having made a little fuss and done some little mischief. But Scott's greatness was principally built up by the Whigs, and his hold on Democrats was not very great. Witness the events of Polk's and Pierce's administrations. His Mississippi-Atlantic strategy is a delirium of a softening brain. Seward's enemies say that he puts up and sustains Scott, because in the case of success Scott will not be in Seward's way for the future Presidency. Mr. Lincoln, an old Whig, has the Whig-worship for Scott; and as Mr. Lincoln, in 1851, stumped for Scott, the candidate for the Presidency, the many eulogies showered by Lincoln upon Scott still more strengthened the worship which, of course, Seward lively entertains in Lincoln's bosom. Thus the relics of Whigism direct now the destinies of the North. Mr. Lincoln, Gen. Scott, Mr. Seward, form a triad, with satellites like Bates and Smith in the Cabinet. But the Whigs have not the reputation of governmental vigor, decision, and promptitude.

The vitiated impulse and direction given by Gen. Scott at the start, still prevails, and it will be very difficult to bring it on the right track--to change the general as well as the war policy from the defensive, as it is now, to the offensive, as it ought to have been from the beginning. The North is five to one in men, and one hundred to one in material resources. Any one with brains and energy could suppress the rebellion in eight weeks from to-day.

Mr. Lincoln in some way has a slender historical resemblance to Louis XVI.--similar goodness, honesty, good intentions; but the size of events seems to be too much for him.

And so now Mr. Lincoln is wholly overshadowed by Seward. If by miracle the revolt may end in a short time, Mr. Seward will have most of the credit for it. In the long run the blame for eventual disasters will be put at Mr. Lincoln's door.

Thank heaven! the area for action and the powers of McClellan are extended and increased. The administration seems to understand the exigencies of the day.

I am told that the patriotic and brave Senator Wade, disgusted with the slowness and inanity of the administration, exclaimed, "I do not wonder that people desert to Jeff. Davis, as he shows brains; I may desert myself." And truly, Jeff. Davis and his gang make history.

Young McClellan seems to falter before the Medusa-_ruin_ Scott, who is again at his tricks, and refuses officers to volunteers. To carry through in Washington any sensible scheme, more boldness is needed than on the bloodiest battle-field.

If Gen. Scott could have disappeared from the stage of events on the sixth of March, his name would have remained surrounded with that halo to which the people was accustomed; but now, when the smoke will blow over, it may turn differently. I am afraid that at some future time will be applied to Scott * * * _quia turpe ducunt parere minoribus, et quae imberbi didicere, senes perdenda fateri_.

Not self-government is on trial, and not the genuine principle of democracy. It is not the genuine, virtual democracy which conspired against the republic, and which rebels, but an unprincipled, infamous oligarchy, risen in arms to destroy democracy. From Athens down to to-day, true democracies never betrayed any country, never leagued themselves with enemies. From the time of Hellas down to to-day, all over the world, and in all epochs, royalties, oligarchies, aristocracies, conspired against, betrayed, and sold their respective father-lands. (I said this years ago in America and Europe.)

Fremont as initiator; he emancipates the slaves of the disloyal Missourians. Takes the advance, but is justified in it by the slowness, nay, by the stagnancy of the administration.

Gen. Scott opposed to the expedition to Hatteras!

If it be true that Seward and Chase already lay the tracks for the Presidential succession, then I can only admire their short-sightedness, nay, utter and darkest blindness. The terrible events will be a schooling for the people; the future President will not be a schemer already shuffling the cards; most probably it will be a man who serves the country, forgetting himself.

Only two members in the Cabinet drive together, Blair and Welles, and both on the right side, both true men, impatient for action, action. Every day shows on what false principle this Cabinet was constructed, not for the emergency, not in view to suppress the rebellion, but to satisfy various party wranglings. Now the people's cause sticks in the mud.

SEPTEMBER, 1861.

What will McClellan do? -- Fremont disavowed -- The Blairs not in
fault -- Fremont ignorant and a bungler -- Conspiracy to destroy
him -- Seward rather on his side -- McClellan's staff -- A Marcy
will not do! -- McClellan publishes a slave-catching order -- The
people move onward -- Mr. Seward again -- West Point -- The
Washington defences -- What a Russian officer thought of them --
Oh, for battles! -- Fremont wishes to attack Memphis; a bold
move! -- Seward's influence over Lincoln -- The people for
Fremont -- Col. Romanoff's opinion of the generals -- McClellan
refuses to move -- Manoeuvrings -- The people uneasy -- The staff
-- The Orleans -- Brave boys! -- The Potomac closed -- Oh, poor
nation! -- Mexico -- McClellan and Scott.

Will McClellan display unity in conception, and vigor in execution? That is the question. He seems very energetic and active in organizing the army; but he ought to take the field very soon. He ought to leave Washington, and have his headquarters in the camp among the soldiers. The life in the tent will inspire him. It alone inspired Frederick II. and Napoleon. Too much organization may become as mischievous as the no organization under Scott. Time, time is everything. The levies will fight well; may only McClellan not be carried away by the notion and the attempt to create what is called a perfect army on European pattern. Such an attempt would be ruinous to the cause. It is altogether impossible to create such an army on the European model, and no necessity exists for it. The rebel army is no European one. Civil wars have altogether different military exigencies, and the great tactics for a civil war are wholly different from the tactics, etc., needed in a regular war. Napoleon differently fought the Vendeans, and differently the Austrians, and the other coalesced armies. May only McClellan not become intoxicated before he puts the cup to his lips.

Fremont disavowed by Lincoln and the administration. This looks bad. I have no considerable confidence in Fremont's high capacities, and believe that his head is turned a little; but in this question he was right in principle, and right in legality. A commander of an army operating separately has the exercise of full powers of war.

The Blairs are not to be accused; I read the letter from F. Blair to his brother. It is the letter of a patriot, but not of an intriguer. Fremont establishes an absurd rule concerning the breach of military discipline, and shows by it his ignorance and narrow-mindedness. So Fremont, and other bungling martinets, assert that nobody has the right to criticise the actions of his commander.

Fremont is ignorant of history, and those around him who put in his head such absurd notions are a pack of mean and servile spit-lickers. An officer ought to obey orders without hesitation, and if he does not he is to be court-martialed and shot. But it is perfectly allowable to criticise them; it is in human nature--it was, is, and will be done in all armies; see in Curtius and other historians of Alexander of Macedon. It was continually done under Napoleon. In Russia, in 1812, the criticism made by almost all the officers forced Alexander I. to leave the army, and to put Kutousoff over Barclay. In the last Italian campaign Austrian officers criticised loudly Giulay, their commander, etc., etc.

Conspiracy to destroy Fremont on account of his slave proclamation. The conspirators are the Missouri slaveholders: Senator Brodhead, old Bates, Scott, McClellan, and their staffs. Some jealousy against him in the Cabinet, but Seward rather on Fremont's side.

McClellan makes his father-in-law, a man of _very_ secondary capacity, the chief of the staff of the army. It seems that McClellan ignores what a highly responsible position it is, and what a special and transcendent capacity must be that of a chief of the staff--the more so when of an army of several hundreds of thousands. I do not look for a Berthier, a Gneisenau, a Diebitsch, or Gortschakoff, but a Marcy will not do.

Colonel Lebedeef, from the staff of the Emperor Alexander II., and professor in the School of the Staff at St. Petersburg, saw here everything, spoke with our generals, and his conclusion is that in military capacity McDowell is by far superior to McClellan. Strange, if true, and foreboding no good.

Mr. Lincoln begins to call a demagogue any one who does not admire all the doings of his administration. Are we already so far?

McClellan under fatal influences of the rampant pro-slavery men, and of partisans of the South, as is a Barlow. All the former associations of McClellan have been of the worst kind--Breckinridgians. But perhaps he will throw them off. He is young, and the elevation of his position, his standing before the civilized world, will inspire and purify him, I hope. Nay, I ardently wish he may go to the camp, to the camp.

McClellan published a slave-catching order. Oh that he may discard those bad men around him!

Struggles with evils, above all with domestic, internal evils, absorb a great part of every nation's life. Such struggles constitute its development, are the landmarks of its progress and decline.

The like struggles deserve more the attention of the observer, the philosopher, than all kinds of external wars. And, besides, most of such external wars result from the internal condition of a nation. At any rate, their success or unsuccess almost wholly depends upon its capacity to overcome internal evils. A nation even under a despotic rule may overcome and repel an invasion, as long as the struggle against the internal evils has not broken the harmony between the ruler and the nation. Here the internal evil has torn a part of the constitutional structure; may only the necessary harmony between this high-minded people and the representative of the transient constitutional formula not be destroyed. The people move onward, the formula vacillates, and seems to fear to make any bold step.

If the cause of the freemen of the North succumbs, then humanity is humiliated. This high-spirited exclamation belongs to Tassara, the Minister from Spain. Not the diplomat, but the nobly inspired _man_ uttered it.

But for the authoritative influence of General Scott, and the absence of any foresight and energy on the part of the administration, the rebels would be almost wholly without military leaders, without naval officers. The Johnsons, Magruders, Tatnalls, Buchanans, ought to have been arrested for treason the moment they announced their intention to resign.

Mr. Seward has many excellent personal qualities, besides his unquestionable eminent capacity for business and argument; but why is he neutralizing so much good in him by the passion to be all in all, to meddle with everything, to play the knowing one in military affairs, he being in all such matters as innocent as a lamb? It is not a field on which Seward's hazarded generalizations can be of any earthly use; but they must confuse all.

Seward is free from that coarse, semi-barbarous know-nothingism which rules paramount, not the genuine people, but the would-be something, the half-civilized _gentlemen_. Above all, know-nothingism pervades all around Scott, who is himself its grand master, and it nestles there _par excellence_ in more than one way. It is, however, to be seen how far this pure American-Scott military wisdom is something real, transcendent. Up to this day, the pure Americanism, West Point schoolboy's conceit, have not produced much. The defences of Washington, so much clarioned as being the product of a high conception and of engineering skill,--these defences are very questionable when appreciated by a genuine military eye. A Russian officer of the military engineers, one who was in the Crimea and at Sebastopol, after having surveyed these defences here, told me that the Russian soldiers who defended Sebastopol, and who learned what ought to be defences, would prefer to fight outside than inside of the Washington forts, bastions, defences, etc., etc., etc.

Doubtless many foreigners coming to this country are not much, but the greatest number are soldiers who saw service and fire, and could be of some use at the side of Scott's West Point greenness and presumption.

If we are worsted, then the fate of the men of faith in principles will be that of Sisyphus, and the coming generation for half a century will have uphill work.

If not McClellan himself, some intriguers around him already dream, nay, even attempt to form a pure military, that is, a reckless, unprincipled, unpatriotic party. These men foment the irritation between the arrogance of the thus-called regular army, and the pure abnegation of the volunteers. Oh, for battles! Oh, for battles!

Fremont wished at once to attack Fort Pillow and the city of Memphis. It was a bold move, but the concerted civil and military wisdom grouped around the President opposed this truly great military conception.

Mr. Lincoln is pulled in all directions. His intentions are excellent, and he would have made an excellent President for quiet times. But this civil war imperatively demands a man of foresight, of prompt decision, of Jacksonian will and energy. These qualities may be latent in Lincoln, but do not yet come to daylight. Mr. Lincoln has no experience of men and events, and no knowledge of the past. Seward's influence over Lincoln may be explained by the fact that Lincoln considers Seward as the alpha and omega of every kind of knowledge and information.

I still hope, perhaps against hope, that if Lincoln is what the masses believe him to be, a strong mind, then all may come out well. Strong minds, lifted by events into elevated regions, expand more and more; their "mind's eye" pierces through clouds, and even through rocks; they become inspired, and inspiration compensates the deficiency or want of information acquired by studies. Weak minds, when transported into higher regions, become confused and dizzy. Which of the two will be Mr. Lincoln's fate?

The administration hesitates to give to the struggle a character of emancipation; but the people hesitate not, and take Fremont to their heart.

As the concrete humanity, so single nations have epochs of gestation, and epochs of normal activity, of growth, of full life, of manhood. Americans are now in the stage of manhood.

Col. Romanoff, of the Russian military engineer corps, who was in the Crimean war, saw here the men and the army, saw and conversed with the generals. Col. R. is of opinion that McDowell is by far superior to McClellan, and would make a better commander.

It is said that McClellan refuses to move until he has an army of 300,000 men and 600 guns. Has he not studied Napoleon's wars? Napoleon scarcely ever had half such a number in hand; and when at Wagram, where he had about 180,000 men, himself in the centre, Davoust and Massena on the flanks, nevertheless the handling of such a mass was too heavy even for his, Napoleon's, genius.

The country is--to use an Americanism--in a pretty fix, if this McClellan turns out to be a mistake. I hope for the best. 600 guns! But 100 guns in a line cover a mile. What will he do with 600? Lose them in forests, marshes, and bad roads; whence it is unhappily a fact that McClellan read only a little of military history, misunderstood what he read, and now attempts to realize hallucinations, as a boy attempts to imitate the exploits of an Orlando. It is dreadful to think of it. I prefer to trust his assertion that, once organized, he soon, very soon, will deal heavy and quick blows to the rebels.

I saw some manoeuvrings, and am astonished that no artillery is distributed among the regiments of infantry. When the rank and file see the guns on their side, the soldiers consider them as a part of themselves and of the regiment; they fight better in the company of guns; they stand by them and defend them as they defend their colors. Such a distribution of guns would strengthen the body of the volunteers. But it seems that McClellan has no confidence in the volunteers. Were this true, it would denote a small, very small mind. Let us hope it is not so. One of his generals--a martinet of the first class--told me that McClellan waits for the organization of _the regulars_, to have them for the defence of the guns. If so, it is sheer nonsense. These narrow-minded West Point martinets will become the ruin of McClellan.

McClellan could now take the field. Oh, why has he established his headquarters in the city, among flunkeys, wiseacres, and spit-lickers? Were he among the troops, he would be already in Manassas. The people are uneasy and fretting about this inaction, and the people see what is right and necessary.

Gen. Banks, a true and devoted patriot, is sacrificed by the stupidity of what they call here the staff of the great army, but which collectively, with its chief, is only a mass of conceit and ignorance--few, as General Williams, excepted. Banks is in the face of the enemy, and has no cavalry and no artillery; and here are immense reviews to amuse women and fools.

Mr. Mercier, the French Minister, visited a considerable part of the free States, and his opinions are now more clear and firm; above all, he is very friendly to our side. He is sagacious and good.

Missouri is in great confusion--three parts of it lost. Fremont is not to be accused of all the mischief, but, from effect to cause, the accusation ascends to General Scott.

Gen. Scott insisted to have Gen. Harney appointed to the command of Missouri, and hated Lyon. If, even after Harney's recall, Lyon had been appointed, Lyon would be alive and Missouri safe. But hatred, anxiety of rank, and stupidity, united their efforts, and prevailed. Oh American people! to depend upon such inveterate blunderers!

Were McClellan in the camp, he would have no flatterers, no antechambers filled with flunkeys; but the rebels would not so easily get news of his plans as they did in the affair on Munson's Hill.

The Orleans are here. I warned the government against admitting the Count de Paris, saying that it would be a _deliberate_ breach of good comity towards Louis Napoleon, and towards the Bonapartes, who prove to be our friends; I told that no European government would commit itself in such a manner, not even if connected by ties of blood with the Orleans. At the start, Mr. Seward heeded a little my advice, but finally he could not resist the vanity to display untimely spread-eagleism, and the Orleans are in our service. Brave boys! It is a noble, generous, high-minded, if not an altogether wise, action.

If a mind is not nobly inspired and strong, then the exercise of power makes it crotchety and dissimulative in contact with men. To my disgust, I witness this all around me.

The American people, its institutions, the Union--all have lost their virginity, their political innocence. A revolution in the institutions, in the mode of life, in notions begun--it is going on, will grow and mature, either for good or evil. Civil war, this most terrible but most maturing passion, has put an end to the boyhood and to the youth of the American people. Whatever may be the end, one thing is sure--that the substance and the form will be modified; nay, perhaps, both wholly changed. A new generation of citizens will grow and come out from this smoke of the civil war.

The Potomac closed by the rebels! Mischief and shame! Natural fruits of the dilatory war policy--Scott's fault. Months ago the navy wished to prevent it, to shell out the rebels, to keep our troops in the principal positions. Scott opposed; and still he has almost paramount influence. McClellan complains against Scott, and Lincoln and Seward flatter McClellan, but look up to Scott as to a supernatural military wisdom. Oh, poor nation!

In Europe clouds gather over Mexico. Whatever it eventually may come to, I suggested to Mr. Seward to lay aside the Monroe doctrine, not to meddle for or against Mexico, but to earnestly protest against any eventual European interference in the internal condition of the political institutions of Mexico.

Continual secondary, international complications, naturally growing out from the maritime question; so with the Dutch cheesemongers, with Spain, with England--all easily to be settled; they generate fuss and trouble, but will make no fire.

Gen. Scott's partisans complain that McClellan is very disrespectful in his dealings with Gen. Scott. I wonder not. McClellan is probably hampered by the narrow routine notions of Scott. McClellan feels that Scott prevents energetic and prompt action; that he, McClellan, in every step is obliged to fight Gen. Scott's inertia; and McClellan grows impatient, and shows it to Scott.

OCTOBER, 1861.

Experiments on the people's life-blood -- McClellan's uniform --
The army fit to move -- The rebels treat us like children -- We
lose time -- Everything is defensive -- The starvation theory --
The anaconda -- First interview with McClellan -- Impressions of
him -- His distrust of the volunteers -- Not a Napoleon nor a
Garibaldi -- Mason and Slidell -- Seward admonishes Adams --
Fremont goes overboard -- The pro-slavery party triumph -- The
collateral missions to Europe -- Peace impossible -- Every
Southern gentleman is a pirate -- When will we deal blows? --
Inertia! inertia!

As in the mediaeval epoch, and some time thereafter, anatomists and physiologists experimented on the living villeins, that is, on peasantry, serfs, and called this process _experientia in anima vili_, so this naive administration experiments in civil and in military matters on the people's life-blood.

McClellan, stirred up by the fools and peacocks around him, has sent to the War Department a project of a showy uniform for himself and his staff. It would be to laugh at, if it were not insane. McClellan very likely read not what he signed.

The army is in sufficient rig and organization to take the field; but nevertheless McClellan has not yet made a single movement imperatively prescribed by the simplest tactics, and by the simplest common sense, when the enemy is in front. Not a single serious reconnoissance to ascertain the real force of the enemy, to pierce through the curtain behind which the rebels hide their real forces. It must be conceded to the rebel generals that they show great skill in humbugging us. Whenever we try to make a step we are met by a seemingly strong force (tenfold increased by rumors spread by the secessionists among us, and gulped by our stupidity), which makes us suppose a deep front, and a still deeper body behind. And there is the humbug, I am sure. If, on such an extensive line as the rebels occupy, the main body should correspond to what they show in front, then the rebel force must muster several hundreds of thousands. Such large numbers they have not, and I am sure that four-fifths of their whole force constitutes their vanguard, and behind it the main body is chaff. The rebels treat us as if we were children.

McClellan fortifies Washington; Fremont, St. Louis; Anderson asks for engineers to fortify some spots in Kentucky. This is all a defensive warfare, and not so will the rebel region be conquered. We lose time, and time serves the rebels, as it increases their moral force. Every day of their existence shows their intrinsic vitality.

The theory of starving the rebels out is got up by imbeciles, wholly ignorant of such matters; wholly ignorant of human nature; wholly ignorant of the degree of energy, and of abnegation, which criminals can display when firmly decided upon their purpose. This absurdity comes from the celebrated anaconda Mississippi-Atlantic strategy.

Oh! When in Poland, in 1831, the military chiefs concentrated all the forces in the fortifications of Warsaw, all was gone. Oh for a dashing general, for a dashing purpose, in the councils of the White House! The constitutional advisers are deaf to the voice of the people, who know more about it than do all the departments and the military wiseacres. The people look up to find as big brains and hearts as are theirs, and hitherto the people have looked up in vain. The radical senators, as a King, a Trumbull, a Wade, Wilson, Chandler, Hale, etc., the true Republicans in the last session of Congress--further, men as Wadsworth and the like, are the true exponents of the character, of the clear insight, of the soundness of the people.

McClellan, and even the administration, seem not to realize that pure military considerations cannot fulfil the imperative demands of the political situation.

_October 6th._--I met McClellan; had with him a protracted conversation, and could look well into him. I do not attach any value to physiognomies, and consider phrenology, craniology, and their kindred, to be rather humbugs; but, nevertheless, I was struck with the soft, insignificant inexpressiveness of his eyes and features. My enthusiasm for him, my faith, is wholly extinct. All that he said to me and to others present was altogether unmilitary and inexperienced. It made me sick at heart to hear him, and to think that he is to decide over the destinies and the blood of the people. And he already an idol, incensed, worshipped, before he did anything whatever. McClellan may have individual courage, so has almost every animal; but he has not the decision and the courage of a military leader and captain. He has no real confidence in the troops; has scarcely any idea how battles are fought; has no confidence in and no notion of the use of the bayonet. I told him that, notwithstanding his opinion, I would take his worst brigade of infantry, and after a fortnight's drill challenge and whip any of the best rebel brigades.

Some time ago it was reported that McClellan considered this war had become a duel of artillery. Fools wondered and applauded. I then protested against putting such an absurdity in McClellan's mouth; now I must believe it. To be sure, every battle is in part a duel of artillery, but ends or is decided by charges of infantry or cavalry. Cannonading alone never constituted and decided a battle. No position can be taken by cannonading alone, and shells alone do not always force an enemy to abandon a position. Napoleon, an artillerist _par excellence_, considered campaigns and battles to be something more than duels of artillery. The great battle of Borodino, and all others, were decided when batteries were stormed and taken. Eylau was a battle of charges by cavalry and by infantry, besides a terrible cannonading, etc., etc. McClellan spoke with pride of the fortifications of Washington, and pointed to one of the forts as having a greater profile than had the world-renowned Malakoff. What a confusion of notions, what a misappreciation of relative conditions!

I cannot express my sad, mournful feelings, during this conversation with McClellan. We spoke about the necessity of dividing his large army into corps. McClellan took from the table an Army Almanac, and pointed to the names of generals to whom he intended to give the command of corps. He feels the urgency of the case, and said that Gen. Scott prevented him from doing it; but as soon as he, McClellan, shall be free to act, the division will be made. So General Scott is everywhere to defend senile routine against progress, and the experience of modern times.

The rebels deserve, to the end of time, many curses from outraged humanity. By their treason they forced upon the free institutions of the North the necessity of curtailing personal liberty and other rights; to make use of despotism for the sake of self-defence.

The enemy concentrates and shortens his lines, and McClellan dares not even tread on the enemy's heels. Instead of forcing the enemy to do what we want, and upturn his schemes, McClellan seemingly does the bidding of Beauregard. We advance as much as Beauregard allows us to do. New tactics, to be sure, but at any rate not Napoleonic.

The fighting in the West and some small successes here are obtained by rough levies; and those imbecile, regular martinets surrounding McClellan still nurse his distrust in the volunteers. All the wealth, energy, intellect of the country, is concentrated in the hands of McClellan, and he uses it to throw up entrenchments. The partisans of McClellan point to his highly scientific preparations--his science. He may have some little of it, but half-science is worse than thorough ignorance. Oh! for one dare-devil in the Lyon, or in the old-fashioned Yankee style. McClellan is neither a Napoleon, nor a Cabrera, nor a Garibaldi.

Mason and Slidell escaped to Havana on their way to Europe, as commissioners of the rebels. According to all international definitions, we have the full right to seize them in any neutral vessel, they being political contrabands of war going on a publicly avowed errand hostile to their true government. Mason and Slidell are not common passengers, nor are they political refugees invoking the protection of any neutral flag. They are travelling commissioners of war, of bloodshed and rebellion; and it is all the same in whatever seaport they embark. And if the vessel conveying them goes from America to Europe, or _vice versa_, Mr. Seward can let them be seized when they have left Havana, provided he finds it expedient.

We lose time, and time is all in favor of the rebels. Every day consolidates their existence--so to speak, crystallizes them. Further--many so-called Union men in the South, who, at the start, opposed secession, by and by will get accustomed to it. Secession daily takes deeper root, and will so by degrees become _un fait accompli_.

Mr. Adams, in his official relations with the English government, speaks of the rebel pirates as of lawful privateers. Mr. Seward admonished him for it. Bravo!

It is so difficult, not to say impossible, to meet an American who concatenates a long series of effects and causes, or who understands that to explain an isolated fact or phenomenon the chain must be ascended and a general law invoked. Could they do it, various bunglings would be avoided, and much of the people's sacrifices husbanded, instead of being squandered, as it is done now.

Fremont going overboard! His fall will be the triumph of the pro-slavery party, headed by the New York Herald, and supported by military old fogies, by martinets, and by double and triple political and intellectual know-nothings. Pity that Fremont had no brilliant military capacity. Then his fall could not have taken place.

Mr. Seward is too much ruled by his imagination, and too hastily discounts the future. But imagination ruins a statesman. Mr. Seward must lose credit at home and abroad for having prophesied, and having his prophecies end in smoke. When Hatteras was taken (Gen. Scott protested against the expedition), Mr. S. assured me that it was the beginning of the end. A diplomat here made the observation that no minister of a European parliamentary government could remain in power after having been continually contradicted by facts.

Now, Mr. Seward devised these collateral missions to Europe. He very little knows the habit and temper of European cabinets if he believes that such collateral confidential agents can do any good. The European cabinets distrust such irresponsible agents, who, in their turn, weaken the influence and the standing of the genuine diplomatic agents. Mr. S., early in the year, boasted to abolish, even in Europe, the system of passports, and soon afterwards introduced it at home. So his imagination carries him to overhaul the world. He proposes to European powers a united expedition to Japan, and we cannot prevent at home the running of the blockade, and are ourselves blockaded on the Potomac. All such schemes are offsprings of an ambitious imagination. But the worst is, that every such outburst of his imagination Mr. Seward at once transforms into a dogma, and spreads it with all his might. I pity him when I look towards the end of his political career. He writes well, and has put down the insolent English dispatch concerning the _habeas corpus_ and the arrests of dubious, if not treacherous, Englishmen. Perhaps Seward imagines himself to be a Cardinal Richelieu, with Lincoln for Louis XIII. (provided he knows as much history), or may be he has the ambition to be considered a Talleyrand or Metternich of diplomacy. But if any, he has some very, very faint similarity with Alberoni. He easily outwits here men around him; most are politicians as he; but he never can outwit the statesmen of Europe. Besides, diplomacy, above all that of great powers, is conceived largely and carried on a grand scale; the present diplomacy has outgrown what is commonly called (but fallaciously) Talleyrandism and Metternichism.

McClellan and the party which fears to make a bold advance on the enemy make so much fuss about the country being cut up and wooded; it proves only that they have no brains and no fertility of expedients. This country is not more cut up than is the Caucasus, and the woods are no great, endless, primitive forests. They are rather groves. In the Caucasus the Russians continually attack great and dense forests; they fire in them several round shots, then grape, and then storm them with the bayonet; and the Circassians are no worse soldiers than are the Southrons.

European papers talk much of mediation, of a peaceful arrangement, of compromise. By intuition of the future the Northern people know very well the utter impossibility of such an arrangement. A peace could not stand; any such peace will establish the military superiority of the arrogant, reckless, piratical South. The South would teem with hundreds of thousands of men ready for any piratical, fillibustering raid, enterprise, or excursion, of which the free States north and west would become the principal theatres. Such a marauding community as the South would become, in case of success, will be unexampled in history. The Cylician pirates, the Barbary robbers, nay, the Tartars of the 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, were virtuous and civilized in comparison with what would be an independent, man-stealing, and man-whipping Southern agglomeration of lawless men. The free States could have no security, even if _all_ the thus _called_ gentlemen and men of honor were to sign a treaty or a compromise. The Southern pestilential influence would poison not only the North, but this whole hemisphere. The history of the past has nothing to be compared with organized, legal piracy, as would become the thus-called Southern chivalry on land and on sea; and soon European maritime powers would be obliged to make costly expeditions for the sake of extirpating, crushing, uprooting the nest of pirates, which then will embrace about twelve millions,--_every_ Southern gentleman being a pirate at heart.