Chapter VI: Part 6

The colonization of Africo-Americans is still discussed; very likely inspired by Seward and by his Yucatan schemes. Senator Doolittle runs himself down at a fearful rate. I regret Doolittle's mistake. Those colonizers forget that if they should export even 100,000 persons a year, an equal number will be yearly born at home, not to speak of other impossibilities. If carried on on a small scale, this scheme amounts to nothing; and on a grand scale it is altogether impossible, besides being as stupid as it is recklessly cruel. Only those persons insist on colonization who hate or dread general emancipation.

When the slaves shall be emancipated, then the owners of plantations will be forced to offer very acceptable terms to the newly made free laborers to have their plantations cultivated, which otherwise must become waste and useless lands, and the planters themselves poor starving wretches. With very little of governmental interference, the mutual relation between planter and laborer can be regulated, and the planter will be the first to oppose colonization.

Look from whatever side you like, a colonization schemer is a cruel deceiver, he is an enemy of emancipation, and if he claims to be an emancipator then he is an enemy of the planter and of the prosperity of the southern region.

Besides, the present scheme of colonization to Chiriqui is an infamous speculation to help some Ambrosio Thompson to work coal mines in that part of Central America. That individual has a grant for some lands in Chiriqui, and there these poor victims are to be exported. The grant itself is contested by the New Grenadian government. Those poor coolies will be the prey of speculators; there will arise claims against the Grenadian government--a rich mine for lobbyists and claimants. Infamy! and these fathers of the country are as blind as moles. Central America is always in convulsions, and of course the colonists will be robbed by every party of those semi-savages. The colonists being Methodists, etc., will be pointed out by the stupid Catholic clergy as being heretics and miscreants.

Washington's proximity to the theatre of war in Virginia is the greatest impediment for rapid movements; it is the ruin of generals and of armies.

Being within reach of the seat of government and of the material means, the generals are never ready, but always have something to complete, something to ask for, and so days after days elapse. In all other countries and governments of the world the commanders move on, and the objects of secondary necessity are sent after them.

In all other countries and wars the principal aim of commanders is to become conspicuous by rapidity of movements. The paramount glory is to have achieved and obtained important results with comparatively limited means. Here, the greater the slowness with which they move, the greater captains they are; and the more expensive their operations, the surer they are of the applause of the administration, and of a great many f----.

After all, the above is the result of pre-existing causes. Slowness, indecision, and waste of money, are the prominent features of this administration.

Stanton excepted, I again think of the dictum of Professor Steffens, and every day believe it more.

Mr. Blair worse and worse; is more hot in support of McClellan, more determined to upset Stanton, and I heard him demand the return of a poor fugitive slave woman to some of Blair's Maryland friends.

Every day I am confirmed in my creed that whoever had slavery for _mammy_ is never serious in the effort to destroy it. Whatever such men as Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Blair will do against slavery, will never be radical by their own choice or conviction, but will be done reluctantly, and when under the unavoidable pressure of events.

Mr. Seward restive and bitter against all who criticise. Mr. Seward assumes that everybody does his best, and ought therefore to be applauded. But Mr. Seward forgets the proverb about hell being paved with good intentions. In this terrible emergency the people want men who _really_ do the best, and not those who only try and intend to do it.

McClellan had the full sway so long--appointed so many, perhaps more than sixty, brigadier generals--that it is not astonishing when those appointees prefer rather not to see for themselves, but blindly "hurrah" for their creator.

Victories in the West, triumphantly establishing the superiority of our soldiers in open battle-fields, and the superiority of all generals who are distant from any contact with Washington, as Pope, Grant, Curtis, Mitchell, Sigel, and others. The brave navy,--this pure democratic element which assures the greatest results, and makes the less laudatory noise. The navy is admirable; the navy is the purest and most glorious child of the people.

The destruction of the rebellion saves the future generations of the Southern whites. Secession would for centuries have bred and raised only formidable social hyenas.

McClellan subsided in mud before Yorktown. Any other, only even half-way, military capacity commanding such forces would have made a lunch of Yorktown. But our troops are to dig, perhaps their graves, to the full satisfaction of Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Blair.

McClellan telegraphs for more men, and he has more already than he can put in action, and more than he has room for. He subsides in digging. The rebels will again fool him as they fooled him in Manassas. If McClellan could know anything, then he would know this--that nothing is so destructive to an army as sieges, as diggings, and camps, and nothing more disciplines and re-invigorates men, makes them true soldiers, than does marching and fighting. Poor Stanton! how he must suffer to be overruled by imbeciles and intriguers. McClellan telegraphing for reinforcements plainly shows how unmilitary are his brains. He and a great many here believe that the greater the mass of troops, the surer the victory. History mostly teaches the contrary; but speak to American wiseacres about history! He, McClellan, and others on his side, ignore the difficulty of handling or swinging an army of 100,000 men.

A good general, confident in his troops, will not hesitate to fight two to three. But McClellan feels at ease when he can, at the least, have two to one. In Manassas he had three to one, and conquered--wooden guns! We will see what he will conquer before Yorktown.

Louis Napoleon always well disposed, but of course he cannot swallow Mr. Seward's demand about belligerents. I am so glad and so proud that up to this day events justify my confidence in the French policy, although our policy may tire not only Louis Napoleon, but tire the God whom we worship and invoke. I should not wonder if God, tired by such McClellans, Lincolns, Sewards, Blairs, etc., finally gives us the cold shoulder. This demand concerning belligerents is a diplomatic and initiative step made by Mr. Seward; it is unsuccessful, as are all his initiatives, and no wonder.

Mr. Lincoln, incited by Mr. Seward and by Mr. Blair, overrules the opinion of the purest, the ablest, and the most patriotic men in Congress--that of Stanton, and of the few good generals unbefogged by McClellanism. Such a power as the Constitution gives to a President is the salvation of the people when in the hands of a Jackson, but when in the hands of a Lincoln, ----!

The muscular strength of the American people, and the strength of its backbone, beat all the Herculeses and Atlases supporting the globe. Any other people would have long ago broke down under the policy and the combined weight of Lincoln, Seward, and McClellan.

Mr. Lincoln is forced out again from one of his pro-slavery entrenchments; he was obliged to yield, and to sign the hard-fought bill for emancipation in the District of Columbia; but how reluctantly, with what bad grace he signed it! Good boy; he wishes not to strike his _mammy_; and to think that the friends of humanity in Europe will credit this emancipation not where it is due, not to the noble pressure exercised by the high-minded Northern masses, but to this Kentucky ----.

Senator Wade made a powerful speech in relation to the arrest of General Stone. It was powerful, patriotic, and rises to the skies over the Lilliputian oratory of the thus-called scholars, etc. Wade is a monolith,--he is cut out full in a rock.

It seems that the new law increasing the number of judges for the Supreme Court weakened many backbones. Congress ought to have added the clause that a senator can be nominated only after six years from the day of the promulgation.

Mr. Seward again chalked before the dazzled eyes of foreign powers certain future military operations; but again events have been so impolite as to upturn Mr. Seward's prophecies.

The report of the Senate committee on the destruction of Norfolk speaks of the "insane delusion" of the administration. I am proud to have considered it in the same light about a year ago.

Mr. Thouvenel politely but logically refuses to acquiesce in Mr. Seward's demand concerning the belligerents. Thouvenel's reasons are plausible. The support given to strategy by Mr. Seward,--that support does more mischief to us than do all the pirates and all the violations of blockade. Let us take Richmond,--a thing impossible with McClellan,--and take by land Charleston, Savannah, etc.; then the pirates and belligerents are strangulated. And--as says Gen. Sherman--Savannah and Charleston could have been taken several months ago. Orders from Washington forbade to do it; and it would be curious to ascertain how far Mr. Seward is innocent in the perpetration of these orders.

Chase and Seward dear-dearing each other! Amusing! Kilkenny cats! At this game Seward will have the best of Chase, who is not a match for tricks.

The New York Times attacks Capt. Dahlgren, of the Navy Yard. It is in the nature of the "little villain" to bespatter men of such devotion, patriotism, and eminent capacity as is Captain Dahlgren.

Thurlow Weed calls the Tribune "infernal," because it wishes a serious war, and thus prevents the raising of a Union party in the South, so flippantly looked for by him and Mr. Seward, his pupil. I see the time coming when all these _gentlemen_ of the concessions, of the not-hurting policy,--when all these conservative seekers for the Union party will try, Pilatus-like, to wash their hands of the innocent blood; but you shall try, and not succeed, to whitewash your stained hands; you have less excuses on your side than had the Roman proconsul on his side.

When Mr. Mercier was in Richmond, some of the rebel leaders and generals told him that they believed not their senses on learning that McClellan was going to Yorktown; that he never could have selected a better place for them, and that they were sure of his destruction on the Peninsula.

Perhaps McClellan wished to try his hand and rehearse the siege of Sebastopol.

If McClellan's ignorance of military history were not so well established, he would know that since Archimedes, down to Todleben, more genius was displayed in the defence than in the attack of any place. The making of approaches, parallels, etc., is an affair of engineering school routine. Napoleon took Toulon rather as an artillerist, who, having, calculated the reach of projectiles, put his battery on a spot wherefrom he shelled Toulon. Napoleon took Mantua by destroying the Austrian army which hastened to the relief of the fortress. But the great American strategian knows better, and satisfies (as said above) the rebels.

The New York Herald, the New York Times, and other staunch supporters of McClellan, again and again trumpet that the rebels fear McClellan, that they consider him to be the ablest general opposed to them. The rebels are smart, and so is their ally, the New York Herald. As for the Times, it is only a flunkeying "little villain."

McDowell, Banks, Fremont have about 70,000 men; the last two are nearly at the head of the Shenandoah valley; they could unite with McDowell, and march and take Richmond. They beg to be ordered to do it, and so wishes Stanton; but, fatally befogged by McClellan, by McClellan's clique in the councils, or by strategians, Lincoln emphatically forbids any junction, any movement; the President forbids McDowell to take Fredericksburg, or to throw a bridge across the river. And thus McClellan prevents any glorious military operation; is losing in the mud a hundred men daily by disease, and Mr. Lincoln--still infatuated. But infatuation is the disease of small and weak brains.

Rothschild in Paris, and very likely the Rothschilds in London, are for the North. But if the Rothschilds show that they well understand and respect the Old Testament, whose spirit is anti-slavery, they show they understand better the true Christian spirit than do the Christians. The Rothschilds show themselves more thoroughly of our century than are such Michel Chevaliers, or such impure Roebucks, and all the supporters of free trade in human flesh.

McClellan's supporters, and such strategians as Blair and Seward, assert that McClellan's plan was ruined by not sending McDowell to Gloucester; that then the whole rebel army would have been caught in a trap. That silly plan to go to the Peninsula is defended in a still more silly way.

By McDowell's going to Gloucester, Washington would have been wholly at the mercy of an army of thirty to forty thousand men; the celebrated defences of Washington, this result of the united wisdom of Scott and McClellan, facilitating to the rebel army a raid on Washington.

Further; McClellan, in concocting and _maturing_ his thus called plans, probably believes that the rebels will do just the thing which, in his calculations, he wishes them to do; and such erroneous suppositions are the sole basis of his _plans_. But the rebels repeatedly showed themselves by far too smart for his _Napoleonic_ brains; and besides, not much wit to the rebel generals was necessary to see through and through what the great Napoleon was about, by ordering McDowell to Gloucester. Of course, the rebel generals would not have had the politeness towards McClellan to sheepishly accede to his wishes, and go into the trap. The whole plan was worse than childish, and I am glad to learn that several generals showed brains to condemn it. The whole plan was up to the comprehension of McClellanites, of consummate strategians in McClellan's official tross, for those in the Cabinet and out of it.

Would God that all this ends not in disasters. If it ends well it will be the first time success has crowned such transcendent incapacity.

MAY, 1862.

Capture of New Orleans -- The second siege of Troy -- Mr. Seward
lights his lantern to search for the Union-saving party --
Subserviency to power -- Vitality of the people -- Yorktown
evacuated -- Battle of Williamsburg -- Great bayonet charge! --
Heintzelman and Hooker -- McClellan telegraphs that the enemy
outnumber him -- The terrible enemy evacuate Williamsburg -- The
track of truth begins to be lost -- Oh Napoleon! -- Oh spirit of
Berthier! -- Dayton not in favor -- Events are too rapid for
Lincoln -- His integrity -- Too tender of men's feelings --
Halleck -- Ten thousand men disabled by disease -- The Bishop of
Orleans -- The rebels retreat without the knowledge of McNapoleon
-- Hunter's proclamation -- Too noble for Mr. Lincoln --
McClellan again subsides in mud -- Jackson defeats Banks, who
makes a masterly retreat -- Bravo, Banks! -- The aulic council
frightened -- Gov. Andrew's letter -- Sigel -- English opinion --
Mr. Mill -- Young Europa -- Young Germany -- Corinth evacuated --
Oh, generalship! -- McDowell grimly persecuted by bad luck.

The capture of New Orleans. The undaunted bravery of the Navy--this most beautiful leaf in the American history. The Navy fights without talk and _strategy_, because it does not look to win the track to the White House. The capture of New Orleans may lead the rebels to evacuate Yorktown and to fool the great strategian.

It is a very threatening symptom, that no genuine harmony--nay, no sympathy--exists between the best, the purest, the most intelligent, the most energetic members of both the Houses of Congress and the President, including the leading spirit of his Cabinet. The New York Herald is the principal supporter of Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward; in the Congress their supporters are the Democrats, and all those who wish to make concessions to the South, who ardently wish to preserve slavery, and in any way to patch up the quarrel.

In times as trying as are the present ones, such a shameful and dangerous anomaly must, in the long run, destroy either the government or the nation. If it turns out differently here, the exclusive reason thereof will be the great vitality of the people. All the deep and dangerous wounds inflicted by the policy of the administration will be healed by the vigorous, vital energy of the people.

"For Heaven's sake finish quick your war!" Such are the exclamations--nay, the prayers--coming from the French statesmen, as Fould and others, from our devoted friends, as Prince Napoleon, and from all the famishing, but nevertheless nobly-behaving, operatives in England. And here McClellan inaugurates before Yorktown a second siege of Troy or of Sebastopol; Lincoln forbids the junction of McDowell with Banks and Fremont, by which Richmond could be easily taken from the west side, where it ought to be attacked; and Mr. Seward reads the like dispatches and backs McClellan; Mr. S. lights his lantern in search North and South of the Union-saving party!

Speak to me of subserviency to power by European aristocrats, courtiers, etc.! What almost every day I witness here of subserviency of influential men to the favored and office-distributing power, all things compared and considered, beats whatever I saw in Europe, even in Russia at the Nicolean epoch.

General Cameron, in his farewell speech, said that at the beginning of the civil war General Scott told him, Cameron, that he, Scott, never in his life was more pained than when a Virginian reminded him of his paramount duties to his State. I take note of this declaration, as it corroborates what a year ago I said in this diary concerning the disastrous hesitations of General Scott.

It is said that Turtschininoff is all in all in General Mitchell's command. Turtschininoff is a genuine and distinguished officer of the staff, and educated in that speciality so wholly unknown to West-Pointers. Several among the foreigners in the army are thoroughly educated officers of the staff, and would be of great use if employed in the proper place. But envy and know-nothingism are doubly in their way. Besides, the foreign officers have no tenderness for the Southern cause and Southern chivalry, and would be in the cause with their whole heart.

By the insinuations of an anonymous correspondent in the Tribune, Mr. Seward tries to re-establish his anti-slavery reputation. But how is it that foreign diplomats, that the purest of his former political friends, consider him to be now the savior of what he once persecuted in his speeches?

At every step this noble people vindicates and asserts the vitality of self-government, continually jeopardized by the inexhaustible errors of the policy followed by the master-spirits in the administration. European doctors, prophets, vindictive enemies like the London Times, the Saturday Review, etc., and the French journals of the police, all of them are daily--nay, hourly--baffled in their expectations--paper money and no bankruptcy, no inflation, bonds equal to gold, etc., etc. And all this, not because there is any great or even small statesman or financier at the head of the administration, but because the people at large have confidence in themselves, in their own energies; because they have the determination to succeed, and not to be bankrupt; not to discredit their own decisions. All these phenomena, so new in the history of nations, are incomprehensible to European wiseacres; they are too much for the hatred and dulness of the Europeans in France, England, and for that of the many Europeans here.

Yorktown evacuated!--under the nose of an army of 160,000 men, and within the distance of a rifle shot!--evacuated quietly, of course, during several days. One cannot abstain from saying Bravo! to the rebel generals. Their high capacity forces the mind to an involuntary applause. Traitors, intriguers, and imbeciles applaud, extol the results of the bloodless strategy. McClellan is used by the rebels only to be fooled by them. It must be so. It is one proof more of the transcendent capacity of the strategian, and, above all, of the capacity and efficiency of the chief of the staff of the great army. Such an operation as that of Yorktown, anywhere else, would be considered as the highest disgrace; here, glorifications of strategy. McClellan's bulletins from Yorktown describe the rebel fortifications as being almost impregnable. Of course impregnable! but only to him.

Battle at Williamsburg; and McClellan and his so perfect staff altogether ignorant of the whole bloody but honorable affair as fought against terrible odds by Heintzelman and Hooker; but the great Napoleon's bulletin mentions a _real_--Oh hear! hear the great Mars!--_charge with the bayonet_, made at the other extremity of Williamsburg, and in which from twenty to forty men were killed!

Heintzelman's and Hooker's personal conduct, and that of their troops, was heroic beyond name. McClellan ignored the battle; ignored what was going on, and, as it is said, gave orders to Sumner not to support Heintzelman.

McClellan telegraphs that the enemy far outnumbers him (fears count doubly), but that he will do his utmost and his best. This Napoleon of the New York Herald's manufacture in everything is the reverse of all the leaders and captains known in history: all of them, when before the battle they addressed their soldiers, represented the enemy as inferior and contemptible; after the battle was won, the enemy was extolled.

From the first of his addresses to this his last dispatch from Williamsburg, McClellan always speaks of the terrible enemy whom he is to encounter; and in this last dispatch he tries to frighten not only his army, but the whole country. During the night _the terrible enemy_ evacuated Williamsburg; McClellan breathes more free, takes fresh courage, and his bulletin estimates the enemy's forces at 50,000.

The track of truth begins to be lost. By comparing dates, bulletins, and notes, it results that at the precise minute when McClellan telegraphed his wail concerning the large numbers of the enemy and the formidable fortifications of Williamsburg, the rebels were evacuating them, pressed and expelled therefrom by Hooker, Kearney, and Heintzelman. Oh Napoleon! Oh spirits not only of Berthier and of Gneisenau, but of the most insignificant chiefs of staffs, admire your caricature at the head of the army commanded by this freshly-backed Napoleon!

A foreign diplomat was in McClellan's tent before Yorktown, on the eve of the day when the rebels wholly evacuated it. One of McClellan's aids suggested to the general that the comparative silence of the rebel artillery might forebode evacuation. "Impossible!" answered the New York Herald's Napoleon. "I know everything that passes in their camp, and I have them fast." (I have these details from the above-mentioned diplomat.) In the same minute, when the strategian spoke in this way, at least half of the rebel army had already withdrawn from Yorktown. Comments thereupon are superfluous.

Dayton, from Paris, very sensibly objects to the policy of insisting that England and France shall annul their decision concerning the belligerents. Dayton considers such a demand to be, for various reasons, out of season. I am sure that Dayton is respected by Louis Napoleon and by Thouvenel on account of his sound sense and rectitude, although he _parleys not_ French. Dayton must impress everybody differently from that French parleying claims' prosecutor and itinerant agent of a sewing machine, who breakfasts in Brussels with Leopold, and the same day dines in Paris with Thouvenel, and may take his supper in h----l, so far as the interest of the cause is concerned. But Dayton seems not to be in favor with the department.

The admirers of McClellan assert that one parallel digged by him was sufficient to frighten the rebels and force them to evacuate. Good for what it is worth for such mighty ignorant brains. The mortars, the hundred-pounders, frightened the rebels; they break down not before parallels, strategy, or Napoleon, but before the intellectual superiority of the North, in the present case embodied in mortars and other armaments.

Following the retreating enemy, McClellan loses more prisoners than he makes from the enemy. A new and perfectly original, perfectly _sui generis_ mode of warfare, but altogether in harmony with all the other martial performances of the pet of the New York Herald, of Messrs. Seward and Blair, and of the whole herd of intriguers and imbeciles.

People who approach him say that Mr. Lincoln's conceit groweth every day. I guess that Seward carefully nurses the weed as the easiest way to dominate over and to handle a feeble mind.

Since Mr. Mercier judges by his own eyes, and not by those of former various Washington associations, his inborn soundness and perspicacity have the upper hand. He is impartial and just to both parties; he is not bound to have against the rebels feelings akin to mine, but he is well disposed, and wishes for the success of the Union.

The events are too grand and too rapid for Lincoln. It is impossible for him to grasp and to comprehend them. I do not know any past historical personality fully adequate to such a task. Happily in this occurrency, the many, the people at large, by its grasp and forwardness, supplies and neutralizes the inefficiency or the tergiversations, intrigues and double-dealings of the few, of the official leaders, advisers, etc.

I willingly concede to Mr. Lincoln all the best and most variegated mental and intellectual qualities, all the virtues as claimed for him by his eulogists and friends. I would wish to believe, as they do, Mr. Lincoln to be infallible and impeccable. But all those qualities and virtues represented to form the residue of his character, all shining when in private life, some way or other are transformed from positives into negatives, since Mr. Lincoln's contact with the pulsations and the hurricane of public life. Thus Mr. Lincoln's friends assert that all his efforts tend to conciliate parties and even individuals. This candor was beneficial and efficient in the court or bar-rooms, or around a supper table in Springfield. It was even more so, perhaps, when seasoned with stories more or less * * * But one who tries to conciliate between two antipodic principles, or between pure and impure characters, unavoidably must dodge the principal points at issue. Such is the stern law of logic. Who dodges, who biasses, unavoidably deviates from that straight and direct way at the end of which dwells truth. Further: feeble, expectative and vacillating minds, deprived of the faculty to embrace in all its depth and extension the task before them,--such minds cannot have a clear purpose, nor the firm perception of ways and means leading to the aim, and still less have they the sternness of conviction so necessary for men dealing with such mighty events, on which depend the life and death of a society. Such men hesitate, postpone, bias and deviate from the straight way. Such men believe themselves in the way to truth, when they are aside of it. It results therefrom, that when certain amiable qualities, such as conciliation, a little dodging, hesitation, etc., are practised in private life and in a very restrained area, their deviations from truth are altogether imperceptible, and they are then positive good qualities, nay, virtues. But such qualities, transported and put into daily friction with the tempestuous atmosphere of human events, lose their ingenuousness, their innocence, their good-naturedness; the imperceptibility of their intrinsic deviation becomes transparent and of gigantic dimensions.

Mr. Lincoln's crystal-pure integrity prevented not the most frightful dilapidation, nay, robbing of the treasury by contractors, etc., etc. Nor has it kept pure his official household. His friend Lamon and the to-be-formed regiments; the splendid equipages and _coupes_ of his youthful secretaries, to be sure, came not from Springfield, etc., etc., nor sees he through the rascally scheme of the Chiriqui colonization.

Mr. Lincoln, his friends assert, does not wish to hurt the feelings of any one with whom he has to deal. Exceedingly amiable quality in a private individual, but at times turning almost to be a vice in a man entrusted with the destinies of a nation. So he never could decide to hurt the feelings of McClellan, and this after all the numerous proofs of his incapacity. But Mr. Lincoln hurts thereby, and in the most sensible manner, the interests, nay, the lives, of the twenty millions of people. I am sure that McClellan may lose the whole army, and why not if he continues as he began? and Mr. Lincoln will support and keep him, as to act otherwise would hurt McClellan's, Marcy's, Seward's, and perhaps Blair's feelings.

Finally, Mr. Lincoln, advised, they say, by Mr. Seward, holds in contempt public opinion as manifested by the press, with the exception of the incense burnt to him by the New York Herald. If this is true, Mr. Lincoln's mind is cunningly befogged.

It is very soothing for the quiet of private life to ignore newspapers; but all over Europe men in power, sovereigns and ministers, carefully and daily study and watch the opinions of the newspapers, and principally of those which oppose and criticise them.

Such, Mr. Lincoln, is the wisdom of the truly experienced statesman. Better ask Louis Napoleon than Seward.

I am astonished that concerning Mexico Louis Napoleon was taken in by Almonte. Experience ought to have fully made him familiar with the general policy of political refugees. This policy was, is, and will be always based on imaginary facts.

Political refugees befog themselves and befog others. And this Mr. de Saligny must be a d----; Louis Napoleon ought to expel him from the service.

Halleck likewise seems to lay the track to the White House. Nothing has been done since he took the command in person. Halleck, as does also McClellan, tries to make all his measures so sure, so perfect, that he misses his aim, and becomes fooled by the enemy. In war, as in anything else, after having quickly prepared and taken measures, a man ought to act, and rely as much as possible on fortune--that is, on his own acuteness--how to cut the knot when he meets it in his path.

Halleck before Corinth, and McClellan before Manassas and Yorktown, both spend by far more time than it took Napoleon from Boulogne and Bretagne to march into the heart of Germany, surround and capture Mack at Ulm, and come in view of Vienna.

The French and English naval officers in the Mississippi assured our commanders that it was impossible to overcome the various defences erected by the rebels. Our men gave the lie to those envious forebodings. McClellan, in a dispatch, assures the Secretary of War that he, McClellan, will take care of the gunboats. _Risum teneatis._

The most contemptible flunkeys on the face of the earth are the wiseacres, and the thus-called framers of public opinion. Until yet McClellan, literally, has not stood by when a cartridge was burned, and they sing hosanna for him.

Ten thousand men have been disabled by diseases before Yorktown; add to it the several thousands in a similar way disabled in the camp before Manassas, and it makes more than would have cost two battles, fought between the Rappahannock and Richmond,--battles which must have settled the question.

Although ultra-Montane, the Bishop of Orleans nobly condemns slavery. The Bishop's pastoral is an answer to H. E., Archbishop of New York. The French bishop therein is true to the spirit of the Catholic church. The Irish archbishop, compared to him, appears a dabbler in Romanism.

During the administration of Pierce and of Buchanan, the Democratic senators ruled over the President and the Cabinet. Perhaps it is not as it ought to be; but for the salvation of the country it were desirable that a curb be put on Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Seward, Mr. Blair, by the Republican senators, by men like Wade, Wilson, Chandler, Grimes, Fessenden, Hale, and others.

The retreat of the rebels was masterly conducted, and their pursuit by McClellan has no name. Nowhere has this Napoleon got at them. The affair at Williamsburg was bravely done by Heintzelman and Hooker; but it was done without the knowledge of McNapoleon, and contrary to his expectations and strategy. This he confesses in one of his _masterly_ bulletins. Perhaps McNapoleon ignored Heintzelman's corps' heroic actions, because neither Heintzelman, nor Hooker, nor Kearney worship _strategy, and the deep, well-matured plans of Mc_.

General Hunter's proclamation in South Carolina is the greatest social act in the course of this war. How pale and insignificant are Mr. Lincoln's disquisitions aside of that proclamation, which is greeted in heaven by angels and cherubim--provided they are a reality.

Of course Mr. Lincoln overrules General Hunter's proclamation. It is too human, too noble, too great, for the tall Kentuckian. Many say that Seward, Blair, Seaton from the Intelligencer, and other Border State patriots, pressed upon Lincoln. I am sure that it gave them very little trouble to put Mr. Lincoln straight ---- with slaveocracy. Henceforth every Northern man dying in the South is to be credited to Mr. Lincoln!

Mr. Lincoln again publishes a disquisition, and points to the signs of the times. But does Mr. Lincoln perceive other, more awful, signs of the times? Does he see the bloody handwriting on the wall, condemning his unnatural, vacillating, dodging policy?

All things considered, it will not be astonishing in Europe if they lose patience and sneer at the North, when they learn that McClellan is continually doing strategy; when they will read his bulletins; when they will find out that from West Point to Richmond he pursued the enemy at the _enormous_ speed of two miles a day,--and that of course nobody was hurt,--and finally, that, surrounded by a brilliant and costly staff, he was ignorant of the condition of the roads, and of the existence of marshes and swamps into which he plunged the army.

The President repeatedly speaks of his strong will to restore the Union. Very well; but why not use for it the best, the most decided, and the most thorough means and measures?

Continually I meet numbers and numbers of soldiers who are discharged because disabled in the camps during winter. Thus McClellan's bloodless strategy deprived several thousands of their health, without in the least hurting the enemy. And daily I meet numbers of able-bodied Africo-Americans, who would make excellent soldiers. I decided to try to form a regiment of the Africo-Americans, and, after whipping the F. F. V.'s, establish, beyond doubt, the perfect equality of the thus called races.

McClellan subsides in mud,--digs,--and the sick list of the army increases hourly at a fearful ratio. And McClellan refuses to slaves admittance within his lines. If, at least, McClellan was a fighting general; but a mud-mole as he ------. Any other general in any other country, in Asia, in Africa, etc., would use any elements whatever within his grasp, by using which he could strengthen his own and weaken the enemy's resources. McNapoleon knows better!

One of the best diplomatic documents by Mr. Seward is that on Mexico; and so is also the policy pursued by him. Why does Mr. Seward dabble in war and strategy at home?

McClellan digs, and by his wailings has disorganized the corps of McDowell, and of Banks, who retreats and is pressed by Jackson. The men who advised, or the McClellan worshippers who prevented the union of McDowell with Banks and Fremont, are as criminal as any one can be in Mr. Lincoln's councils.

Now Jackson is reorganized; he penetrated between Fremont and Banks, who were sorely weakened by transferring continually divisions from one to another army, and this between the Chickahominy and the lower Shenandoah.

New diplomatic initiative by Mr. Seward. France and England are requested to declare to the rebels that they have no support to expect from the above-mentioned powers.

This initiative would be splendid if it could succeed; but it cannot, and for the same logical reasons as failed the recent initiative about belligerents. Such unsuccessful initiatives are lowering the consideration of that statesman who makes them. Such failures show a want of diplomatic and statesmanlike perspicacity.

The nation is assured by Mr. Lincoln and by Mr. Seward that a perfect harmony prevails in the Cabinet. Beautiful if true.

General Banks attacked by Jackson and defeated; but, although surrounded, makes a masterly retreat, without even being considerably worsted. Bravo, Banks! Such retreats do as much honor to a general as a won battle.

This bold raid of Jackson--a genuine general--wholly disorganized that army which, if united weeks ago, could have taken Richmond, and rendered Jackson's brilliant dash impossible. The military aulic council of the President is frightened out of its senses, and asks the people for 100,000 defenders. General Wadsworth advised not to thus, without any necessity, frighten the country.

On this occasion Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts, wrote a scorching letter to the administration on account of General Hunter's proclamation. Governor Andrew always acts, speaks, and writes to the point.

This alarming appeal, so promptly responded to, has its good, as it will show to Europe the untired determination of the free States.

The President took it into his head to direct himself, by telegraph, the military operations from Fredericksburg to Shenandoah. The country sees with what results. The military advisers of the President seem no better than are his civil advisers--Seward, Blair, etc. If the President earnestly wishes to use his right as Commander-in-Chief, then he had better take in person the command of the army of the Potomac.

There McClellan's diggings and strategy neutralize the gallantry of the generals and of the troops. There action, not digging, is needed. I wrote to the President; suggesting to make Sigel his chief of the staff (Sigel has been educated for it), and then to let our generals fight under his, the President's, eyes.

Great injustice was and is done to Mr. Seward by the lying and very extensively spread rumor that he is often intoxicated. I am sure that it is not so, and I contradict it with all my might. At last I discovered the reason of the rumor. It is Mr. Seward's unhappy passion for generalizations. He goes off like a rocket. Most people hearing him become confused, understand nothing, are unable to follow him in his soarings, and believe him to be intoxicated. His devotees alone get in ecstacies when these rockets fly.

Every time after any success of our troops, that perfidious sheet, the London Times, puts on innocent airs, and asks, "Why are the Americans so bitter against England?" Why? At every disaster the Times pours upon the North the most malicious, poisonous, and lacerating derisions; derisions to pierce the skin of a rhinoceros. When in that strain no feeling is respected by this lying paper.

Derision of the North was the Times's order of the day even before the civil war really began. People, who probably have it from the fountain itself, assert that in one of his hours of whiskey expansion the great Russell let the cat out, and confessed that the Times's firm purpose was, and is, to definitely break the Union.

Until this hour that reptile's efforts have been unsuccessful; it could not even bring the Cabinet over to its heinous purposes. A counterpoise and a counter poison exist in England's higher spheres, and I credit it to that noblest woman the queen, to Earl Russell, and to some few others.

The would-be English _noblesse_, the Tories, and all the like genuine nobodies, or _would-be_ somebodies, affect to side with the South. They are welcome to such an alliance, and even parentage. _Similis simili gaudet._ Nobody with his senses considers the like _gentlemen_ as representing the progressive, humane, and enlightened part of the English nation; the American people may look down upon their snobbish hostility. J. S. Mill--not to speak of his followers--has declared for the cause of the North. His intellectual support more than gorgeously compensates the cause of right and of freedom, even for the loss or for the sneers of the whole aristocracy, and of snobdom, of somebodies and of would-be gentlemen of the whole Britannia Empire, including the Canadian beggarly manikins.

By their arrogance the Englishmen are offensive to all the nations of the world; but they are still more so by their ingrained snobbyism. (See about it Hugo Grotius.) Further: During the last thirty years the London Times and the Lord Fussmaker Palmerston have done more to make us hate England than even did the certain inborn and not over-amiable traits in the English character.

A part of the young foreign diplomacy here have a very strong secesh bend; they consider the slaveholders to be aristocrats, and thus like to acquire an aristocratic perfume. But, aristocratically speaking, most of this promiscuous young Europa are parvenus, and the few titled among them have heraldically no noble blood in their veins. No wonder that here they mistake monstrosities for real noblesse. Enthusiastic is young Germany--that is, young Bremen.

Young European Spain here is remarkably discreet, as in the times of a Philip II., of an Alba.

Corinth evacuated under the nose of Halleck, as Manassas and Yorktown have been evacuated under the nose of McClellan. Nay, Halleck, equally strong as was the enemy, the first day of the evacuation ignores what became of Beauregard with between sixty and eighty thousand men. Oh generalship! Gen. Halleck is a gift from Gen. Scott. If Halleck makes not something better, it will turn out to be a very poor gift. _Timeo Danaos_, etc., concerning the North and the gifts from "_the highest military authority in the land_."

McDowell is grimly persecuted by bad luck. Since March, twice he organized an excellent and strong corps, with which he could have marched on Richmond, and both times his corps was wholly disorganized--first by McClellan's wails for more, the second time by the President and his aulic council. And now all the ignorance and stupidity, together with all the McClellanites, accuse McDowell. Pity that he was so near Washington; otherwise his misfortune could not have so thoroughly occurred.

JUNE, 1862.

Diplomatic circulars seasoned by stories -- Battle before
Richmond -- Casey's division disgraced -- McClellan afterwards
confesses he was misinformed -- Fair Oaks -- "Nobody is hurt,
only the bleeding people" -- Fremont disobeys orders -- N. Y.
Times, World, and Herald, opinion-poisoning sheets -- Napoleon
never visible before nine o'clock in the morning -- Hooker and
the other fighters soldered to the mud -- Senator Sumner shows
the practical side of his intellect -- "Slavery a big job!" --
McClellan sends for mortars -- Defenders of slavery in Congress
worse than the rebels -- Wooden guns and cotton sentries at
Corinth -- The navy is glorious -- Brave old Gideon Welles! --
July 4th to be celebrated in Richmond! -- Colonization again --
Justice to France -- New regiments -- The people sublime! --
Congress -- Lincoln visits Scott -- McDowell -- Pope --
Disloyalty in the departments.

Mr. Seward takes off from Mr. Adams the gag on the question of slavery. Perhaps even Mr. Adams might have been a little fretting. A long speculative dispatch, wherein, among some good things, one finds some generalizations and misstatements concerning the distress in Ireland, generated by want of potatoes (vide Parl. De.), and not from want of cotton, as says Mr. Seward--a confession that the government "covers the weakness of the insurgents" and "takes care of the welfare of the insurgents." What a tenderness, and what an ingratitude of the rebels to acknowledge it by blows! Another confession, more precious, that the poor slaves are the best and the only bravely devoted Union men in the South, although occasionally shot for their devotion by our generals, expelled from the lines (vide Halleck's order No. 3), and delivered to the tender mercies of their masters. Finally, _immediate_ emancipation is held before the eyes of the English statesmen rather as a Medusa head; then a kind of story--perhaps to please Mr. Lincoln--or quotation from _some_ writer, etc. So far as I recollect, it is for the first time that diplomatic circulars are seasoned by stories. But, _dit moi qui tu hante je te dirai qui tu es_.

Mr. Seward repeatedly asserts, in writing and in words, that he has no eventual views towards the White House. Well, it may be so or not. But if his friends may succeed in carrying his nomination, then, of course, reluctantly, he will bend his head to the people's will, and--accept. When in past centuries abbots and bishops were elected, they _reluctantly_ accepted fat abbeys and bishoprics; the investiture was given in the sacramental words, _accipe onus pro peccatis_.

A battle by Richmond. McClellan telegraphs a victory, and it comes out that we lost men, positions, camps, and artillery. The President patiently bears such humbugging, and the country--submits.

McClellan disgraces a part of the brave General Casey's division. Whatever might have been the conduct of the soldiers in detail, one thing is certain, that the division was composed of rough levies; that they fought three hours, being almost surrounded by overwhelming forces; that they kept ground until reinforcements came; that the breaking of the division cannot be true, or was only partial, and that McClellan was not at all on the ground.

This battle of Fair Oaks is another evidence of the transcendent incapacity of the chief of the staff of the army of the Potomac, and of Gen. McClellan's veracity. In a subsequent bulletin the general confesses that he was misinformed concerning the conduct of Gen. Casey's division.

In any other army in the world, a chief of the staff who would assign to a division a post so advanced, so isolated, so cut off from the rest of the army, as was Gen. Casey's position,--such a chief of the staff would be at once dismissed. Here, oh here, nobody is hurt, nobody is to be hurt--only the bleeding people.

As to the conduct of the soldiers, they fought well; thorough veterans scarcely could have behaved better. McClellan turns out worse even than I expected.

The President's campaign against Jackson--very unsuccessful. Fremont came not up to the mark; disobeyed orders. No excuse whatever for such disobedience.

One is at a loss which is to be more admired, the ignorance or the impudence of such opinion-confusing and opinion-poisoning sheets as the New York Times, the World, the Herald, etc. They sing _hosanna_ for McClellan's victories. In advance they praise the to-be-fought battles on selected fields of battle, and after the plans have been matured for weeks, nay for months.

A plan of a whole campaign, a general survey of it, may be prepared and matured long before the campaign begins. But to mature for weeks a plan of a battle! All the genuine great captains seldom had the selection of a field of battle, as they rapidly moved in search of or to meet their enemies, and fought them where they found them. For the same reason, they scarcely had more than forty-eight hours to mature their plans. Such is the history and the character of nine-tenths of the great battles fought in the world.

When Napoleon overthrew Prussia and Austria, he beforehand prepared those campaigns; but neither Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Austerlitz or Wagram were the fields of battle of his special choice. But Napoleon moved his armies as did all the great captains before him, and as must do all great captains after him. Only American great captains sit down in the mud and dig.

At times in the West, Pope, Mitchell, Nelson, Grant moved their forces, and beat the enemy. I am sure that these brave generals and the braves of the army of the Potomac most certainly are early risers. A certain Napoleon never is visible before nine o'clock in the morning. So I hear from a French officer who is not in the service, but follows the movements of the Potomac army.

In McClellan's army Heintzelman, Hooker, Kearney, Sumner, and many others, would move quick, would fight and beat; but a leaden weight presses, and solders them to the mud. I must write an article to the press concerning the rapidity of movements,--this golden rule for any conduct of a war.

Since he was in the field, McNapoleon neither planned nor assisted in person in any encounter. When are his great plans to burst out?

In one of his recently published dispatches, Mr. Seward makes an awful mistake in trying to establish the difference between a revolution and a civil war, as to their respective relations to foreign interference and support. A little knowledge of history, and a less presumption, would have spared to him such an exposure. A revolution in a nation can be effected, and generally is effected, without a foreign intervention, and without even an appeal to it. Most of the civil wars look to foreign help. So teaches history, whatever may be Mr. Seward's contrary generalizations.

Mr. Seward is unrelenting in his efforts to build up the Union-saving slavery party, and is sure, as he says, to be able to manage the Republicans, in and out of Congress. We shall see.

Senator Sumner very well discusses the tax-bill, and again shows the practical side of his intellect. Sumner proves that a laborious intellect can grasp and master the most complicated matters. If Sumner could only have more experience of men and things, he would not be so Germanly--_naive_.

Mr. Seward triumphantly publishes the Turkish hatti, by which pirates are excluded from the Ottoman ports. Oh, Jemine! to be patronized by the Turks! Misfortune brings one with strange bedfellows.

On the occasion of the organization of slaves at Beaufort, Mr. Lincoln exclaimed, "Slavery is a big job, and will smother us!" It will, if dealt with in your way, Mr. President.

McClellan sends for mortars and hundred-pounders; these monsters are to fight, but not he. Well, even so, if possible.

The Southern leaders send to Europe officers of artillery to buy arms and ammunition, and are well served. Our good administration sends speculators, railroad engineers, agents of sewing machines, and the arms bought by them kill our own soldiers, and not the enemies.

English papers taunt the Americans that in one hundred years the country must become a monarchy. The Americans have now a foretaste of some among the features of monarchy, among others of favoritism. The Pompadours and the Dubarrys could not have sustained a McClellan at the cost of so many lives and so many millions. Then the dabbling in war, and other etc.'s, performed in the most approved Louis XIV.'s or Nicolean style.

Worse than the rebels, and by far more abject and degraded, are the defenders of slavery, of treason, and of rebellion in the Congress, in the press, and in the public opinion. No gallows high enough for them.

McClellan crowds the marshes with heavy artillery, and may easily lose them at the smallest disaster. His army is overburdened with artillery in a country where the moving of guns must be exceedingly difficult, nay, often impossible. And then the difficulty of having such a large number of men drilled for the service of guns. Scarcely any army in Europe possesses artillerists in such numbers as are now required here. Few guns well served make more execution than large numbers of them fired at random.

Instead of concentrating his army and attacking at once the rebels in Richmond, McClellan extends his army over nearly sixty miles! To keep such an extensive line more than 300,000 would be required. Oh, heavens! this man is more ignorant of warfare than his worst enemies have suspected him.

It is reported that at Corinth the rebels had not only wooden guns, but cotton manikins as sentries. God grant it may not be true, as it would make the slow, pedantic Halleck even below McClellan.

The future historian will be amazed, bewildered, nay, he may lose his senses, discovering the heaps of confusion and of ignorance which caused the disasters of Banks, the escape of Jackson, etc., etc.

It is impossible to resist the admiration inspired by the skill, the daring, the fertility of intellectual resources displayed by the rebels; all this is so thoroughly contrasted by what is done by our legal chiefs.

Pity that such manhood is shown in the defence of the most infamous cause ever known in the history of the world. To conquer an independence with the sole object to procreate, to breed, to traffic in, and to whip slaves!

The navy is glorious everywhere, and not fussy. The people can never sufficiently remunerate the navy, if patriotic services are to be remunerated. The same would be with the army but for the Napoleons!