Chapter VIII: Part 8

Other nations at times reached the bottom of an abyss, and they came up again when from the tempest rending them emerged such a savior. But here the formula may render impossible the appearance of such a savior. The formula is the nation's hearse. The formula has neutralized the best men in Congress, the best men in the Cabinet, as is Stanton.

The people have decided not, _propter vitam vivendi perdere causas_; but the various formulas, the schemers, the grave-diggers, and the aspirants for the White House, think differently.

The almost daily changes made by Mr. Lincoln in the command of the forces are the best evidences of his good-intentioned--debility.

Harmony belongs to the primordial laws of nature; it is the same for human societies. But here no harmony exists between the purest, the noblest, and the most patriotic portion of the people, and the official exponent of the people's will, and of its higher and purer aspirations. So here all jars dissonantly; all is confusion, because avenged must be every violation of nature's law.

I cannot believe that at this deadly crisis the salvation can come from Washington. The best man here has not his free action. And the rest of them are the country's curse. Mr. Lincoln, with McClellan, Seward, Blair, Halleck, and scores of such, are as able to cope with this crisis as to stop the revolution of our planet.

_Up to this day_, from among those foremost, the only man whose hands remain unstained with the country's, his mother's, and his brethren's blood, the last Roman, is Stanton.

_September 7._--During last night troops marched to meet the enemy, saluting with deafening shouts and cheers the residence of McClellan; spit-lickers as a Kennedy, giving the sign by waving his hat. Such shouts would cheer up the mind but for the fact that they were mostly raised for the victory over those who demanded an investigation of the causes of _slowness_ and insubordination,--those exclusive causes of the defeat of Pope's army. Those shouts were thrown out as defiance to justice, to truth, and to law. Those shouts marked the inauguration of the _pretorian regime_. General McClellan and other generals have forced the President to _postpone_ the investigation into the conduct of the _slow_ and of the insubordinate generals, all three special favorites of McClellan. General McClellan appeared before the soldiers surrounded by his _old identical staff_, by a tross of flatterers, and, Oh heavens! in the cortege Senator Wilson! Oh, _sancta_ not _simplicitas_, but ---- Oh, clear-sighted Republican!

Subsequently, I learned that Senator Wilson was present for a moment, and only by a pure accident, at that ovation.

_Laeszt Dich dem Teufel bey'm Haare packen, so hat Er Dich bey'm Kopfe_, says Lessing, and so it may become here with this first success of the pretorians, or even worse than pretorians; these here are Yanitschars of a Sultan.

Pope and his army accuse three generals of insubordination and mutiny on the field of battle. McClellan prevents investigation; the brutal rule of Yanitschars is inaugurated, thanks to you, Messrs. Seward and Blair.

McDowell sacrificed to the Yanitschars; he is the scapegoat and the victim to popular fallacy, to the imbecility of the press, and, above all, to the intriguers and to the conspiracy of the mutinous pets of McClellan. Weeks and weeks ago, I foretold to McDowell that such would be his fate, and that only in after-times history will be just towards him.

The country begins to be inundated and opinion poisoned by all kinds of the most glaring lies, invented and spread by the staffs, and the imbecile, blind partisans of McClellan. Here are some from among the lies.

In January (oh hear, oh hear!) General McClellan with 50,000 men intended to make a _flying_ (oh hear, oh hear!) expedition to Richmond, but Lincoln and Stanton opposed it. This lie divides itself into two points. 1st lie. In January, nobody opposed General McClellan's will, and, besides, he was sick. 2d lie. If he was so pugnacious in January, why has he not made with the same number of men a flying expedition only to Centreville, right under his nose?

Emanating from the staff, such a lie is sufficient to show the military capacity of those who concocted it.

Second lie. That the expedition to Yorktown and the Peninsula strategy were forced upon McClellan. I hope that the Americans have enough memory left, and enough self-respect to recollect the truth.

Further, the above staff asserts that, when the truth will be known about the campaign, and the fightings in the Chickahominy, then justice will be done to McClellan.

Always and everywhere lost battles, bad and ignorant generalship, require explanations, justifications, and commentaries. Well-fought battles are justified on the spot, the same day, and by results. No one asks or makes comments upon the fighting of Jackson. Austerlitz, Jena, were commented on, explained, some of the chiefs were justified, but--by Austrian and Prussian commentators.

Until to-day French writers discuss, analyze, and comment upon the fatal battle of Waterloo. At Waterloo Napoleon was in the square of his heroic guards; but during the seven days' fighting on the Chickahominy, what regiment, not to say a square, saw in its midst the American Napoleon?

A thousand others, similar to the above-mentioned lies, will be or are already circulated; the mass of the people will use its common sense, and the lies must perish.

On September 7th, Gen. McClellan gave his word to the President to start to the army at 12 o'clock, but started at 4 P. M. with a long train of well-packed wagons for himself and for his staff. To be sure, Lee, Jackson, and all the other rebel chiefs together, have not such a train; if they had, they would not be to-day on the Potomac and in Maryland. Most certainly those quick-moving rebels start at least an hour earlier than they are expected to do.

_September 9._--Up to this day Mr. Lincoln ought to have discovered whose advice transformed him into a standard-bearer of the policy of the New York Herald, and made him push the country to the verge of the grave; and, nevertheless, Mr. Lincoln is deaf to the voice of all true and pure patriots who point out the malefactors.

Secondary events; as a lost battle, etc., depend upon material causes; but such primordial events as is the thorough miscarriage of Mr. Lincoln's anti-rebellion policy,--such events are generated by moral causes.

Jefferson Davis, Lee, Jackson, and all the generals down to the last Southern bush-whacker, incarnate the violent and hideous passion of slavery, now all-powerful throughout the South. Here, Lincoln, Seward, McClellan, Blair, Halleck, etc., incarnate the negation of the purest and noblest aspirations of the North. Stanton alone is inspired by a national patriotic idea. No unity, no harmony between the people and the leaders; this discord must generate disasters.

All over the country the lie is spread that the army demanded the reappointment of McClellan. First, the three mutinous generals did it; but not a Kearney, the Bayard of America; very likely not Hooker and Heintzelman--all of them soldiers, patriots, and men of honor; nor very likely was it demanded by Keyes. I do not know positively what was the conduct of Gen. Sumner. Gen. Burnside owes what he is, glory and all, to McClellan. Burnside's honest gratitude and honest want of judgment have contributed more than anything else to inaugurate the regime of the pretorians, to justify mutiny. Halleck's conduct in all this is veiled in mystery; it is so at least for the present; and as truth will be kept out of sight, the country may never know the truth about those shameful proceedings.

I learn that Heintzelman, against his own judgment, agreed in the McClellan movement. Well, if this is true, then, of course, the army, for a long time misled by uninterrupted intrigues, misled by papers such as the New York Herald and the Times,--the army or the soldiers mightily contributed to bring about this fatal crisis. An army composed of intelligent Americans, blinded, stultified by intriguers, declares for a general who never, up to this day, covered with glory his or the army's name. After this nothing more is to be expected, and no disaster on the field of battle, no dissolution of a national principle, can astonish my mind. Cursed be those who thus demoralized the sound judgment of the soldiers! Cursed be my personal experience of men and of things which makes me despair! But when an army or soldiers become intellectually brought down to such a standard, then the holiest cause will always be lost. Oh for a man to save the cause of humanity! But if even such a man should appear, these pretorians will turn against him.

The pretorians, with the New York Herald as their flag, will soon finish with liberty at home. McClellan, Barlow, the brothers Wood, and Bennett, may very soon be at the helm, with the 100,000 pretorians for support. _Similia similibus_; and here disgrace is to cure disgrace.

These helpless grave-diggers, above all, Seward, are on the way to pick a quarrel with England, sending a flying gunboat fleet under Wilkes into the West Indian waters. At this precise moment it were better to be very cautious, and rather watch strongly our coasts with the same gunboats.

_September 11._--A military genius at once finds out the point where blows are to be struck, and strikes them with lightning-like speed. The rebels act in this manner; but what point was found out, what blows were ever dealt by McClellan?

Individuals similar to McClellan were idolized by the Roman pretorians, and this idolatry marks the epoch of the utmost demoralization and degradation of the Roman empire. Witnessing such a phenomenon in an army of American volunteers, one must give up in despair any confidence in manhood and in common sense.

The Journal of St. Petersburg of August 6th semi-officially refutes the insinuations that Russia intends to recognize the South, or to unite with France and England for any such purpose, or for mediation. The language of the article is noble and friendly, as is all which up to this day has been done by Alexander II. Mr. Stoeckl, the Russian minister here, considerably contributes that such sound and friendly views on the condition of our affairs are entertained by the Russian Cabinet.

_September 11._--Imbeciles agitate the question of mediation. European cabinets will not offer it now, and nobody, not even the rebels, would accept. No possible terms and basis exist for any mediation. A Solomon could not find them out. If Jackson and Lee were to shell Washington, then only the foreign ministers may be requested to step in and to settle the terms of a capitulation or of an evacuation. The foreign ministers here could act as mediators only if asked; not otherwise. I am sure it will come out that the invasion of Maryland by the rebels is made under the pressure exercised in Richmond by the Maryland chivalry in the service of the rebellion. These runaways probably promised an insurrection in Maryland, provided a rebel force crosses the Potomac. (Wrote it to England.)

All around helplessness and confusion. Conscientiously I make all possible efforts to record what I believe to be true, and then truth will take care of herself.

After the study of the campaigns of Frederick II., above all, after the study of those marvellous campaigns, combinations, manoeuvres of Napoleon, to witness every day the combinations of McClellan is more disgusting, more nauseous for the mind, than can be for the stomach the strongest dose of emetic.

The last catastrophe at Bull Run and at Manassas has a slight resemblance with the catastrophe at Waterloo. The conduct of the mutinous generals here is similar to the conduct of some of the French generals during the battle of Ligny and Quatre-Bras. But here was mutiny, and there demoralization produced by general and deeply rooted and fatally unavoidable causes. The demoralization of the French generals came at the end of a terrible epoch of struggles and sacrifices, of material exhaustion, when the faith in the destinies of Napoleon was extinct; here mutiny and demoralization seize upon the newly-born era.

_September 13._--What a good-natured people are the Americans! A regiment of Pennsylvania infantry quartered for the night on the sidewalk of the streets; officers, of course, absent; the poor soldiers stretched on the stones, when so many empty large buildings, when the empty (intellectually and materially empty) White House could have given to the soldiers comfortable night quarters. It can give an idea how they treat the soldiers in the field, if here in Washington they care so little for them. But McClellan has forty wagons for his staff, and forty ambulances--no danger for the latter to be used. In European armies aristocratic officers would not dare to treat soldiers in this way--to throw them on the pavement without any necessity.

More than once in my life, after heavy fighting, I laid down the knapsack for a cushion, snow for a mattrass and for a blanket; but by the side of the soldiers, the generals, the staffs, and the officers shared similar bedsteads.

I hear strange stories about Stanton, and about his having ruefully fallen in McClellan's lap. If so, then one more _man_, one more illusion, and one more creed in manhood gone overboard, drowned in meanness, in moral cowardice, and subserviency.

The worshippers of strategy and of Gen. McClellan try to make the public swallow, that the investment of Richmond by him was a magnificent display of science, and would have been a success but for 50,000 more men under his command.

To invest any place whatever is to cut that place from the principal, if not from all communications with the country around, and thus prevent, or make dangerous or difficult, the arrival of provisions, of support, etc.

Our gunboats, etc., in the York and the James rivers have virtually invested Richmond on the eastern side; but that part of the Peninsula did not constitute the great source of life for the rebel army. The principal life-arteries for Richmond ran through four-fifths of a circle, beginning from the southern banks of the James river and running to the southern banks of the Rapidan and of the Rappahannock. Through that region men, material, provisions poured into Richmond from the whole South, and that whole region around Richmond was left perfectly open; but strategy concentrated its wisdom on the comparatively indifferent eastern side of the Chickahominy marshes, and cut off the rebels from--nothing at all.

_September 13._--General McClellan, in search of the enemy, during the first six days makes thirty miles! Finds the enemy near Hagerstown. No more time for strategy.

_September 14._--General McClellan telegraphs to General Halleck (_meliores ambo_) that he, McClellan, has "_the most reliable information that the enemy is 190,000 strong in Maryland and in Pennsylvania, besides 70,000 on the other side of the Potomac_." (The same bosh about the numbers as in the Peninsula.)

The Generals Burnside, Hooker, Sumner, Reno, fought the battle at Hagerstown, and drove the enemy before them. General McClellan reports a victory, _but expects the enemy to renew the fighting next day in a considerable force_--(as at Williamsburg). McClellan telegraphs to Halleck, "_Look for an attack on Washington._" The enemy retreats to recross the Potomac!

_September 15._--General Wadsworth suggested to the President one of those bold movements by which campaigns are terminated by one blow: "To send Heintzelman and him, Wadsworth, with some 25,000 men, to Gordonsville (here and in Baltimore about 90,000 men), and thus cut off the enemy from Richmond, and prevent him from rallying his forces." But General Halleck opposes such a Murat's dash, on account of McClellan's "looked-for attack on Washington"--by his, McClellan's, imagination.

_September 17._--When I wrote the above about Wadsworth and Heintzelman, I was under the impression that the victory announced by McClellan, Sept. 14, was more decisive; that as he had fresh the whole corps of Fitz John Porter, and the greatest part of that of Franklin, and other supports sent him from Washington, he would give no respite to the enemy, and push him into the Potomac. It turned out differently.

The loss by capitulation of Harper's Ferry. It is a blow to us, and very likely a disgraceful affair, not for the soldiers, but for the commanders.

_September 19._--Five days' fighting. Our brave Hooker wounded; tremendous loss of life on both sides, and no decisive results. These last battles, and those on the Chickahominy, that of Shiloh, in one word all the fightings protracted throughout several consecutive days, are almost unexampled in history. These horrible episodes establish the bravery, the endurance of the soldiers, the bravery and the ability of some among the commanders of the corps, of the divisions, etc., and the absence of any _generalship in the commander_.

_September 20._--Until this day Gen. McClellan has not published one single detailed report about any of his operations since the evacuation of Manassas in March. Thus much for the staff of the army of the Potomac. We shall see what detailed report he will publish of the campaign in Maryland. McClellan's bulletins from Maryland are twins to his bulletins from the Peninsula; and there may be very little difference between the _gained_ victories. To-day he is ignorant of the movements of the enemy, and has more than 30,000 fresh troops in hand.

As in the Peninsula, so in Maryland. Although having nearly one-third more men than the enemy, General McClellan never forced the enemy to engage at once its whole force, never attacked the rebels on their whole line, and never had any positive notion about the number and the position of the opposing forces.

The rebels had the Potomac in their rear; our army pressed them in front, and--the rebels escaped.

I appeal to such military heroes as Hooker; I appeal to thousands of our brave soldiers, from generals down to the rank and file, and further I appeal to all women with hearts and brains here and in Europe.

_September 20._--Gen. Mansfield killed at the head of his brigade. I ask his forgiveness for all the criticism made upon him in this diary. Last year, at the beginning of the war, Gen. Mansfield acted under the orders of Gen. Scott. This explains all.

As in the slaughters of the Chickahominy, so in the Maryland slaughters, _nobody hurt_ in McClellan's numerous staff. Thank Heaven! Not only his life is charmed, but the charm extends over all who surround him,--men and beasts.

A malediction sticks to our cause. Hooker badly, very badly wounded. Hooker fought the greatest number of fights,--was never worsted in the Peninsula, nor in the August disasters, and he alone has the supreme honor of a nick-name, by the troopers' baptism: the _Fighting Joe_. Hooker, not McClellan, ought to command the army. But no pestilential Washington clique, none of the West-Pointers, back him, and the pets, the pretorians, may have refused to obey his orders.

After the escape of the rebels from Manassas in March, and after the evacuation of Yorktown, all the intriguers and traitors grouped around the New York Herald, and the imbeciles around the New York Times, prized high _the masterly strategy_ and its bloodless victories. Now, in dead, by powder and disease, in crippled, etc., McClellan destroyed about 100,000 men, and the country's honor is bleeding, the country's cause is on the verge of a precipice.

How rare are men of civic heroism, of fearless civic courage; men of the creed: _perisse mon nom mais que la patrie soit sauvee._

General Wadsworth feels more deeply and more painfully the disasters, nay, the disgrace, of the country, than do almost all with whom I meet here. During the Congress, similar were the feelings of Senator Wade, Judge Potter, and of many other Congressmen in both the Houses. So feel Boutwell, Andrew, the Governor of Massachusetts, and I am sure many, many over the country. But the sensation-men and preachers, lecturers, etc., all are to be * * * *

_September 22._--By Mr. Seward's policy and by McClellan's strategy and war-bulletins the bravest and the most intelligent people became the laughing-stock of Europe and of the world. And thus is witnessed the hitherto in history unexampled phenomenon of a devoted and brave people of twenty millions, mastering all the wealth and the resources of modern civilization, worsted and kept at bay by four to five million rebels, likewise brave, but almost beggared, and cut off from all external communications.

_Sept. 23._--Proclamation _conditionally_ abolishing slavery from 1863. The _conditional_ is the last desperate effort made by Mr. Lincoln and by Mr. Seward to save slavery. Poor Mr. Lincoln was obliged to strike such a blow at his _mammy_! The two statesmen found out that it was dangerous longer to resist the decided, authoritative will of the masses. The words "resign," "depose," "impeach," were more and more distinct in the popular murmur, and the proclamation was issued.

Very little, if any, credit is due to Mr. Lincoln or to Mr. Seward for having thus late and reluctantly _legalized_ the stern will of the immense majority of the American people. For the sake of sacred truth and justice I protest before civilization, humanity, and posterity, that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward intrinsically are wholly innocent of this great satisfaction given to the right, and to national honor.

The absurdity of colonization is preserved in the proclamation. How could it have been otherwise?

But if the rebellion is crushed before January 1st, 1863, what then? If the rebels turn loyal before that term? Then the people of the North will be cheated. Happily for humanity and for national honor, Mr. Lincoln's and Mr. Seward's benevolent expectations will be baffled; the rebels will spurn the tenderly proffered leniency; these rebels are so ungrateful towards those who "cover the weakness of the insurgents," &c. (See the celebrated, and by the American press much admired, despatch in May or June, 1862, Seward to Adams.)

The proclamation is written in the meanest and the most dry routine style; not a word to evoke a generous thrill, not a word reflecting the warm and lofty comprehension and feelings of the immense majority of the people on this question of emancipation. Nothing for humanity, nothing to humanity. Whoever drew it, be he Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Seward, it is clear that the writer was not in it either with his heart or with his soul; it is clear that it was done under moral duress, under the throttling pressure of events. How differently Stanton would have spoken!

General Wadsworth truly says, that never a noble subject was more belittled by the form in which it was uttered.

Brazilian m----s are much disturbed by the proclamation.

_Sept. 23._--In his answer to the Paisley Parliamentary Reform Association, Mr. Seward complains that the sympathy of Europe turns now for secession.

O Mr. Seward, Mr. Seward, who is it that contributed to turn the current against the cause of right and of humanity? Months ago I and others warned you; the premonitory signs and the reasons of this change have been pointed out to you. Now you slander Europe, of which you know as little as of the inhabitants of the moon. The generous populations of the whole of Europe expected and waited for a positive, unhesitating, clear recognition of human rights; day after day the generous European minds expected to see some positive, authoritative fact confirm that lofty conception which, at the start of this rebellion, they had of the cause of the North. But the pure, generous tendencies of the American people became officially, authoritatively misrepresented; the public opinion in Europe became stuffed with empty generalizations, with official but unfulfilled prophecies, and with cold declamations. Those official generalizations, prophecies, and declamations, the supineness shown by the administration in the recognition of human rights, all this began to be considered in Europe as being sanctioned by the whole American people; and generous European hearts and minds began to avert in disgust from the _misrepresented_ cause of the North.

Two issues are before history, before the philosophy of history, and before the social progress of our race. The first issue is the struggle between the pure democratic spirit embodied in the Free States, and the fetid remains of the worst part of humanity embodied in the South. The second issue is between the perennial vitality of the principle of self-government in the people, and the transient and accidental results of the self-government as manifested in Mr. Lincoln, in Mr. Seward, and their followers. I hope that this Diary will throw some light on the second issue, and vindicate the perennial against the transient and the accidental.

_Sept. 24._--If the events of this war should progress as they are foreshadowed in the proclamation of September 22, then the application of this proclamation may create inextricable complications. Not only in one and the same State, but in one and the same district, nay, even in the same township, after January 1st, 1863, may be found Africo-Americans, portions of whom are emancipated, the others in bondage. But the stern logic of events will save the illogical, pusillanimous, confused half-measure, as it now is. (O Steffens!)

General McClellan confesses that if Hooker had not been wounded, then _the road_, by which the retreat of the rebels might have been cut off, would have been taken. Such a declaration is the most emphatic recognition of Hooker's superior military capacity. Seldom, however, has the loss of a general commanding only _en second_, or a wing, as did Hooker, decided the fortunes of the day. Why did not McClellan take _the road_ himself, after Hooker was obliged to leave the field? When Desaix, Bessieres, and Lannes fell, Napoleon nevertheless won the respective battles.

_Sept. 25._--The military position of the rebels in Winchester seems to me one of the best they ever held in this war. Winchester is the centre of which Washington, Harper's Ferry, Williamsport, nay, even Wheeling, seem to be the circumference. Our army under McClellan is almost beyond the circle, crosses not the Potomac, and is now only to watch the enemy. So much for the great McClellan's victory. Truly, the enemy may be taken in the rear, its communications with Richmond, &c., cut off and destroyed; but _we are safe_ on the Potomac, and this is sufficient. McClellan is _the man of large conceptions and rapid execution_. The best generals are _hors de combat_; as to Halleck, O, it is not to think, not to speak. Well, I may be mistaken, but I clearly see all this on the map of Virginia.

_Sept. 25._--The West Point spirit persecutes Sigel with the utmost rage. The West Point spirit seemingly wishes to have Sigel dishonored, defeated, even if the country be thereby destroyed. The Hallecks, &c., keep him in a subordinate position; _three days ago_ his corps was a little over seven thousand, almost no cavalry, and most of the artillery without horses, and he in front.

The more I scrutinize the President's thus called emancipation proclamation, the more cunning and less good will and sincerity I find therein. I hope I am mistaken. But the proclamation is only an act of the military power,--is evoked by military necessity,--and not a civil, social, humane act of justice and equity.

The only good to be derived from this proclamation is, that for the first time the word _freedom_, and a general comprehension of "emancipation," appear in an official act under the sanction of the formula, and are inaugurated into the official, the constitutional life of the nation. In itself it is therefore a great event for a people so strictly attached to legality and to formulas.

I do not recollect to have read in the history of any great, or even of a small captain,--above all of such a one when between thirty-four and thirty-six years old,--that he followed the army under his command in a travelling carriage and six, when the field of operations extended from fifty to seventy miles. Three cheers for McClellan, for his carriage and six!

HOW THE GREAT CAPTAIN WAS TO CATCH THE WHOLE REBEL ARMY IN
MANASSAS, IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH, A. D. 1862.

It was to have been done by a brilliant and unsurpassable stroke of combined strategy, tactics, manoeuvres, marches, and swimmings; also on land and water. (O, hear! O, hear!)

As every body knows, the rebels were encamped in the so _fearful_ strongholds of Centreville and Manassas, all the time fooling the commander-in-chief of the federal army in relation to their _immense_ numbers. To attack the rebels in front, or to surround them by the Occoquan and Brentsville, would have been a too--simple operation; by a special, an immense, space-embracing anaconda strategy, the rebel army was to be cut off from the whole of rebeldom, and forced to surrender _en masse_ to the inventor of (the not yet patented, I hope) bloodless victories. To accomplish such an immense result, a fleet of transports was already ordered to be gathered at Annapolis. On them in ten or fifteen days (O, hear!) an army of fifty to sixty thousand, most completely equipped, was to be embarked, plus forty thousand in Washington, all this to sail under the personal command of the general-in-chief, and sail towards Richmond. Richmond taken, the rebel army at Manassas would have been cut off, and obliged to surrender on any terms.

The above splendid conception was, and still is, peddled among the army and among the nation by the admirers of, and the devotees of, anaconda strategy.

The expedition was to land at the mouth of the Tappahannock, a small port, or rather a creek, used for shipping of a small quantity of tobacco. As the port or creek has only some small attempts at wharves, the landing of such an enormous army, with parks of artillery, with cavalry, pontoons, and material for constructing bridges,--the landing would not have been executed in weeks, if in months; but the projector of the plan, perfectly losing the notion of time, calculated for ten days. From that port the _flying_ expedition was to march directly on Richmond through a country having only common field and dirt roads, and this in a season when all roads generally are in an impassable condition, through a country intersected by marshy streams, principal among them the Matapony and the Pamunkey--to march towards Richmond and the Chickahominy marshes. It seems that Chickahominy exercised an attractive, Armida-like charm on the great strategian. An army loaded with such immense trains would have sufficiently destroyed all the roads, and rendered them impassable for itself; and the _flying_ expedition would at once have been transformed into an expedition sticking in the mud, similar to that subsequent in the peninsula. The enemy was in possession of Fredericksburg and of the railroad to Hanover Court House on one flank, and of all the best roads north of and through Chickahominy marshes on the other flank. The _flying_ expedition would have had for base Tappahannock and a dirt road. O strategy! O stuff!

The much-persecuted General McDowell exposed the worse than crudity of the brilliant conception. By doing this, McDowell saved the country, the administration, and the strategian from immense losses and from a nameless shame. It is due to the people that the administration lay before the public the scheme and the refutation. A look on the map of Virginia must convince even the simplest mind of the brilliancy of this conception.

During all this time spent in such masterly operations, the rebel army in Manassas was to quietly look on, to wait, and not move, not retreat on Richmond. Early in March, at once the rebel army, always undisturbed, quietly disappeared from Manassas; and this is the best evidence of the depth of that brilliant combination, peddled under the name of the _flying expedition to Richmond_, projected for January, February, or March. I appeal to the verdict of sound reason; the parties are, common sense _versus_ anaconda strategy and bloodless victories.

_Sept. 27._--The proclamation issued by the war power of the President is not yet officially notified to those who alone are to execute it--the armies and their respective commanders. Who is to be taken in? The papers publish a detailed account of an interview between the President and an anti-slavery deputation from Chicago. The deputation asked for stringent measures in the spirit of the law of Congress, which orders the emancipation of the slaves held by the rebels. The President combated the reasons alleged by the deputation, and tried to establish the danger and the inefficiency of the measure. A few days after the above-mentioned debate, the President issued the proclamation of September 22. Are his heart, his soul, and his convictions to be looked for in the debate, or in the proclamation?

The immense majority of the people, from the inmost of its heart, greets the proclamation--a proof how deeply and ardently was felt its necessity. The gratitude shown to Mr. Lincoln for having thus executed the will of his master,--this gratitude is the best evidence how this whole people is better, has a loftier comprehension of right and duty, than have its elected servants.

McClellan already speaks that the campaign is finished, and the army is to go into winter quarters. If the people, if the administration, and if the army will stand this, then they will justly deserve the scorn of the whole civilized and uncivilized world. But with such civil and military chiefs all is possible, all may be expected to be included in their programme of--vigorous operations.

_Sept. 28._--For some weeks I watch a conspiracy of the West Pointers, of the commanders-in-chief, of the staffs, and of the double know-nothing cliques united against Sigel. The aim seems to be to put Sigel and his purposely-reduced and disorganized forces in such a condition and position that he may be worsted or destroyed by the enemy. To avoid dishonoring the forces under him, to avoid exposing them to slaughter, and to avoid being thus himself dishonored, Sigel ought to resign, and make public the reasons of his resignation. A few days ago, I wrote and warned the Evening Post; but--but--

The Richmond papers confirm what I supposed concerning the motives which pushed the rebel army across the Potomac. As the Marylanders rose not in arms, and joined not the rebel army, the invaders had nothing else to do but to retreat and to recross the Potomac. McClellan ought to have thrown them into the river, which Hooker, if not wounded, would have done, or if he had the command of our army.

The rebels would have retreated into Virginia, even without being attacked by McClellan, even if he only followed them, say at one day's distance. Not having destroyed the rebels, McClellan, in reality, and from the military stand point, accomplished very little--near to nothing. Hooker estimates the rebel force, at the utmost, at eighty thousand men, and that is all that they could have. McClellan had about one hundred and twenty thousand. And--and he is to be considered the savior of Maryland and of Pennsylvania. O, good American people! The genuine Napoleon won all his great battles against armies which considerably outnumbered his.

Mr. Seward menaces England with issuing _letters of marque_ against the Southern privateers. The menace is ridiculous, because it will not be carried out, and, if carried out, it will become still more ridiculous; it would be a very poor compliment to the navy to use the whole power of private enterprise against a few rovers, and it would be an official recognition of the rebels in the condition of belligerents. _Quousque tandem_--O SEWARD--_abutere patientiam nostram?_

_Sept. 30._--Nearly three weeks after the battle of Antietam, General McClellan publishes what he and they call a report of his operations in Maryland; in all not twenty lines, and devoted principally to establish--on probabilities--the numerical losses of the enemy. The report is a fit _pendant_ to his bulletins; is excellent for bunkum, and to make other people justly laugh at us.

OCTOBER, 1862.

Costly Infatuation -- The do-nothing strategy -- Cavalry on lame
horses -- Bayonet charges -- Antietam -- Effect of the
proclamation -- Disasters in the West -- The abolitionists not
originally hostile to McClellan -- Helplessness in the War
Department -- Devotedness of the people -- McClellan and the
proclamation -- Wilkes -- Colonel Key -- Routine engineers --
Rebel raid into Pennsylvania -- Stanton's sincerity -- O,
unfighting strategians! -- The administration a success -- _De
gustibus_ -- Stuart's raid -- West Point -- St. Domingo -- The
President's letter to McClellan -- Broad church -- The elections
-- The Republican party gone -- The remedy at the polls --
McClellan wants to be relieved -- Mediation -- Compromise -- The
rhetors. -- The optimists -- The foreigners -- Scott and Buchanan
-- Gladstone -- Foreign opinion and action -- Both the extremes
to be put down -- Spain -- Fremont's campaign against Jackson --
Seward's circular -- General Scott's gift -- "O, could I go to a
camp!" -- McClellan crosses the Potomac -- Prays for rain --
Fevers decimate the regiments -- Martindale and Fitz John Porter
-- The political balance to be preserved -- New regiments -- O,
poor country!

With what a bloody sacrifice of men this people pays for its infatuation in McClellan, for the moral cowardice of its official leaders, and the intrigues and the imbecility of the regulars, of some among the West Pointers, of traitors led by the New York Herald, by the World, and by certain Unionists on the outside, and secessionists at heart! All these combined nourish the infatuation. All things compared, Napoleon cost not so much to the French people, and at least Napoleon paid it in glory. Mind and heart sicken to witness all this here. The question to-day is, not to strengthen other generals, as Heintzelman and Sigel, and to take the enemy in the rear, but to give a _chance_ to McClellan to win the ever-expected, and not yet by him won, _great battle_. McClellan continually calls for more men; all the vital forces of the people are absorbed by him; and when he has large numbers, he is incapable of using and handling them; so it was at the Chickahominy, so it was at Antietam. In the way that McClellan acts now, he may use up all the available forces of the people, if nobody has the courage to speak out; besides, any warning voice is drowned in the treacherous intrigues of the clique, in imbecility and infatuation.

At the meeting of the governors, at the various public conventions, in the thus called public resolutions--platforms, in one word--wherever, in any way. North, West, and East, the public life of the people has made its voice heard: _a vigorous prosecution of the war_ was, and is, earnestly recommended to the administration. All this will be of no avail. By this time, by bloody and bitter experience, the American people ought to have learned it. With his civil and military aids and lieutenants, as the McClellans, the Hallecks, the Sewards, Mr. Lincoln has been at work; and at the best, they have shown their utter incapacity, if not ill-will, to carry the war on vigorously and upon strictly military principles. Many persons in Washington know that Mr. Seward last winter firmly backed the _do-nothing_ strategy, in the firm belief that the rebels would be worried out, and submit without fighting. To those statesmen and Napoleons, Carnots, &c., it is as impossible to manoeuvre with rapidity, to strike boldly and decidedly, as to dance on their _well-furnished_ heads. Only such a good-natured people as the Americans can expect _something_ from that whole _caterva_. To expect from Mr. Lincoln's Napoleons, Carnots, &c., vigorous and rapid military operations, is the same as to mount cavalry on thoroughly lame horses, and order it to charge _a fond de train_.

The worshippers of McClellan peddle that the Antietam victory became neutralized because the enemy fell back on its second and third line. Whatever may be in this falling back on lines, and accepting all as it is represented, one thing is certain, that when commanders win victories, generally they give no time to the enemy to fall back in order on its second and third lines. But every thing gets a new stamp under the new Napoleon. A few hours after the Antietam battle, General McClellan telegraphed that he "_knew not_ if the enemy retreated into the interior or to the Potomac." O, O!

Many from among the European officers here have some experience of the manoeuvring of large bodies--experience acquired on fields of battle, and on reviews, and those camp manoeuvres annually practised all over Europe. In this way the European officers, more or less, have the _coup d'oeil_ for space and for the _terrain_, so necessary when an army is to be put in positions on a field of battle, and which _coup d'oeil_ few young American officers had the occasion to acquire. If judiciously selected for the duties of the staffs, such European officers would be of use and support to generals but for jealousy and the West Point cliques.

During this whole war I hear every body, but above all the West Point wiseacres and strategians, assert that charges with the bayonet and hand-to-hand fighting are exceedingly rare occurrences in the course of any campaign. It is useless to speak to all those great judges of experience and of history.

In the account of the battles of Ligny and of Waterloo, Thiers mentions four charges with the bayonet and hand-to-hand fighting at Ligny, and nine at Waterloo, wherein one was made by the English, one was made by Prussians and by French, and one by the French with bayonet against English cavalry. In 1831 the Poles used the bayonet more than it was used in any one campaign known in history. O, West Point!

It deserves to be noticed that the conspirators against Pope and McDowell, and the pet pretorians of September 6 and 7, distinguished themselves not very much in the battle of Antietam. Hooker commanded McDowell's corps.

To the number of evils inflicted upon this country by the McClellan infatuation, must be added the fact that many young men, with otherwise sound intellects, have been taken in, stultified, poisoned beyond cure, by high-sounding words, as strategy, all-embracing scientific combinations, &c.--words identified with incapacity, defeats, and intrigue.

In all probability, Hooker alone, when he fought, had a fixed plan at the Antietam battle. As for a general plan, aiming either to throw the enemy into the river, or to cut him from the river, or to accomplish something final and decisive, seemingly no such plan existed. It looks as if they had ignored, at the headquarters, what kind of positions were occupied by the enemy; and the only purpose seems to have been to fight, but without having any preconceived plan. This, at least, is the conclusion from the manner in which the battle was fought. If any plan had existed, the brave army would have executed it; but the enemy retreated in order, and rather unmolested. _As always, so this time, the bravery of the army did every thing; and, as a matter of course, the generalship did--nothing._

_Oct. 4._--The proclamation of September 22 may not produce in Europe the effect and the enthusiasm which it might have evoked if issued a year ago, as an act of justice and of self-conscientious force, as an utterance of the lofty, pure, and ardent aspirations and will of a high-minded people. Europe may see now in the proclamation an action of despair made in the duress of events; (and so it is in reality for Mr. Lincoln, Seward, and their squad.) And in this way, a noble deed, outpouring from the soul of the people, is reduced to pygmy and mean proportions by ----. The name is on every body's lips.

But it was impossible to issue this proclamation last year; at that time the master-spirit of Mr. Lincoln's administration emphatically assured the diplomats that the Union will be preserved, _were slavery--to rule in Boston_.

The continued disasters in the West can easily be explained by the fact, that those rotten skeletons, Crittenden, Davis, and Wickliffe control the operations of the generals.

_Among the countless lies peddled by McClellan's worshippers, the most enormous and the most impudent is that one by which they attempt to explain, what in their lingo they call, the hostility of the abolitionists towards McClellan. Concerning this matter, I can speak with perfect knowledge of almost all the circumstances._

_Not one abolitionist of whatever hue, not one republican whatever, was in any way troubled or thought about the political convictions of General McClellan at the time when he was put at the head of the army. All the abolitionists and republicans, who then earnestly wished, and now wish, to have the rebellion crushed, expected General McClellan to do it by quick, decisive, soldier-like, military operations, manoeuvres, and fights. Senators Wade, Chandler, Trumbull, &c., in October, 1861, principally aided McClellan to become independent of General Scott. When, however, weeks and months elapsed without any soldier-like action, manifestation, or enterprise whatever, all those who were in earnest began to feel uneasy, began to murmur, not in reference to any political opinions, whatever, held by General McClellan, but solely and exclusively on account of his military supineness. All those who ardently wished, and wish, that neither slaveholders nor slavery be hurt in any way, such ones early grouped themselves around General McClellan, believing to have found in him the man after their own heart. That cesspool of all infamies, the New York Herald, became the mouthpiece of all the like hypocrites. They and the Herald were the first to pervert and to misrepresent the indignation evoked by the do-nothing or nobody-hurt strategy, and to call it the abolition outcry against their fetish._

Scarcely will it be believed what disorder, what helplessness, and what incapacity rule paramount in the expedition of any current business in the strictly military part of the War Department. It is worse than any imaginable red-tape and circumlocution. And all this, being considered a speciality and a technicality, is in the exclusive hands of the adjutant general, a master spirit among the West Pointers. Generally, all relating to the thus celebrated organization of the army is an exclusive work of the West Point wisdom--is handled by West Pointers; and, nevertheless, the general comprehension of all details in relation to an army, how it is to be handled, all the military details of responsibility, of higher discipline, &c., all this is confusion, and strikes with horror any one either familiar with such matters or using freely his sound sense. A narrow routine which may have been innocuous with an army of sixteen thousand with General Scott and in peace, became highly mischievous when the army increased more than fifty times, and the war raged furiously. All this confusion is specially produced by the wiseacres and doctors of routine. Undoubtedly it reacts on the army, and shows of what use for the country is, and was, that whole old nursery.

Wherever one turns his eyes, every where a deep line separates the patriotic activity of the people from the official activity. With the people all is sacrifice, devotion, grandeur, and purity of purpose, by great and small, by rich and poor, and with the poor, if possible, even more than with the rich. With the highest and higher officials it is either weakness, or egotism, or coolness, or intrigue, or ignorance, or helplessness. The exceptions are few, and have been repeatedly pointed out.

_Oct. 8._--General McClellan's order to the army concerning the President's proclamation shows up the man. Not a word about the object in the proclamation, but rather unveiled insinuations that the army is dissatisfied with emancipation, and that it may mutiny. The army ought to feel highly honored by such insinuations in that lengthy disquisition about his (McClellan's) position and the duties of the army. For the honor of the brave, armed citizen-patriots it can be emphatically asserted that the patriotic volunteers better know their duties than do those who preach to them. Some suspect that Mr. Seward drew the paper for McClellan, but I am sure this cannot be. It may have been done by Bennett or some other of the Herald, or by Barlow. If this order is the result of Mr. Lincoln's visit to the camp, and of a transaction with Mac-Napoleon, then the President has not thereby increased the dignity of his presidential character.

Wilkes's Spirit of the Times incommensurably towers above the New York Press by its dauntless patriotism; by its clear, broad, and deep comprehension of the condition of the country.

Colonel Key's disclosures concerning the McClellan-Halleck programme, not to destroy the rebels and the rebellion until the next presidential election, are throttled by the dismissal of the colonel. But what he said, if put by the side of the words of the order to the army, that "the remedy for political errors, if any are committed, is to be found only in the action of the people at the polls,"--all this ought to open even the most obtuse intellects.

Poor (Carlyle fashion) old Greeley hurrahs for McClellan and for the order No. 163 to the army. O for new and young men to swim among new and young events!

_Oct. 11._--Will any body in this country have the patriotic courage to reform the army? that is, to dismiss from the service the West Point clique in Washington and in the army of the Potomac. Such a proof of strong will cannot be expected from the President; but perhaps Congress may show it. Those first and second scholars or graduates from West Point are all routine engineers; and who ever heard of whole armies commanded, moved, and manoeuvred by engineers? American invention; but not to be patented for Europe.

_Oct. 11._--The rebel raid into Pennsylvania, under the nose of McClellan. Is there any thing in the world capable of opening this people's eyes?

I doubt if at any time, and in the life of any great or small people, there existed such a galaxy of civil and military rulers, chiefs, and leaders, stripped of nobler manhood, as are the _great men_ here. The blush of honor never burned their cheeks! O, the low politicians! Some persons doubt Stanton's sincerity in his dealings with individuals. I am not a judge thereof; but were it so, it can easily be forgiven if he only remains sincere and true to the cause.

One is amazed and even aghast at the impudence of the McClellan and West Point cliques. In their lingo, heroes like Kearney, like Hooker and Heintzelman, all such are superciliously mentioned as _only fighting generals_. O, unfighting strategians!

Stuart's brilliant raid was executed the day of McClellan's bombastic proclamation about his having cleared Pennsylvania and Maryland of the enemy. On the same day McClellan and other generals straggled about the country, visiting cities hundreds of miles distant from the camp. And such generals complain of straggling! Make the army fight! inspire with confidence the soldier--then he will not straggle.

The Evening Post, October 13, demonstrates that up to this day Mr. Lincoln's administration is "a grand and brilliant success." Well, _de gustibus non est disputandum_. Others may rightly think that the achievements enumerated by the Evening Post are exclusively due to the people; that by the people they were forced upon the administration, (Stanton and the navy excepted;) and that the numerous failures, the waste of human life, of money, and of time, are to be logically and directly traced to the administration. O, subserviency!

The McClellanites are indignant against the Pennsylvanians for not having caught Stuart and his three thousand horses. Bravo! And what is the army for? and, above all, what are the so expensive commander and his staff for?

It is perhaps natural that many from among the republican leaders attempt to prop up the reputation of Mr. Lincoln's administrative capacity, to kindle a halo around his name, and to sponge the waste of blood, of means, and of time, from the tracks of his Seward-Scott-Blair administration; but stern historical justice shall not, and cannot, do it.

Whatever be the high _military and scientific prowess_ shown by the first West Point graduates and scholars, all this in no way compensates for the _summum_ of perverted notions which are reared there, and for the mock, sham, and clownish aristocracy by which a high-toned West Pointer is easily recognized. Of course many and many are the exceptions; many West Point pupils are animated by the noblest and purest American spirit; but the genuine West Point spirit consists in sneering and looking down with contempt at the mother and nurse; that is, at the purely republican, purely democratic political institutions, at the broad political and intellectual freedom to which those clown-aristocrats owe their rearing, their little bit of information, and those shoulder-stripes by which they are so mightily inflated.

What silly talk, to compare the St. Domingo insurrection with the eventual results of emancipation in the South! In St. Domingo the slaves were obliged to tear their liberty from the slaveholding planter, and from a government siding with the oppressor. Here the lawful government gives liberty to a peaceful laborer, and the planter is an outlawed traitor. But the genuine pro-slavery democrat is stupidly obtuse.