Chapter 11

Europe, that is, European statesmen, judge the country, the people, by its leaders and governors. European statesmen judge the events by the turn given to them by a Lincoln, a Seward; this furnishes an explanation of many of the misdeeds committed by English and French statesmen.

_April 4._--The people at large, with indomitable activity, mends, repairs the disasters resulting from the inability and the selfishness of its official chiefs. One day, however, the people will turn its eyes and exclaim:

"_But thou, O God! shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction; bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days._"

_April 4._--General Butler's speech in New York, at the Academy of Music, is the best, nay, is the paramount exposition of the whole rebellion in its social, governmental and military aspects. No President's Message, no letter, no one of the emanations of Seward's letter and dispatch-writing, corrosive disease, not an article in any press compares with Butler's speech for lucidity, logic, conciseness and strong reasoning. Butler laid down a law, a doctrine--and what he lays down as such, contains more cardinal truth and reason than all that was ever uttered by the Administration. And Butler is shelved and bartered to France by Seward as long since as 1862; and the people bear it, and the great clear-sighted press subsides, instead of day and night battering the Administration for pushing aside the _only man_, emphatically the ONLY MAN who was always and everywhere equal to every emergency--who never was found amiss, and who never forgot that an abyss separates the condition of a rebel, be he armed or unarmed, (the second even more dangerous,) from a loyal citizen and from the loyal Government.

_April 4._--The annals of the Navy during this war will constitute a cheering and consoling page for any future historian. If the Navy at times is unsuccessful, the want of success can be traced to altogether different reasons than many of the disasters on land. Nothing similar to McClellanism pollutes the Navy--and want of vigilance and other mistakes become virtues when compared with want of convictions, with selfishness, and with intrigue. I have not yet heard any justified complaint against the honesty of the Navy Department; I feel so happy not to be disappointed in the tars of all grades, and that Neptune Welles, with his Fox, (but not a red-haired, thieving fox,) keep steady, clean, and as active as possible.

_April 5._--Senator Sumner pines and laments, Jeremiah-like, on the ruins of our foreign policy, and accuses Seward of it--behind his back. Why has not _pater conscriptus_ uttered a single word of condemnation from his Senatorial _fauteuil_, and kept mute during three sessions? _Sunt nobis homunculi sed non homines._

_April 5._--A letter in the papers, in all probability written under the eye of General Franklin, tries to exculpate the General from all the blood spilt at Fredericksburgh. It will not do, although the writer has in his hands documents, as orders, etc. Franklin orders General Meade to attack the enemy's lines at the head of 4500 men, (he ought to have given to Meade at least double that number); brave and undaunted Meade breaks through the enemy; and Franklin's excuse for not supporting Meade is, that he had no orders from head-quarters to do it. By God! Those geniuses, West Point No. Ones, suppose that any dust can be thrown to cover their nameless--at the best--helplessness. Franklin commanded a whole wing, sixty thousand men; his part in the battle was the key to the whole attack. Franklin's eventual success must decide the day. Meade was in Franklin's command, and to support Meade, Franklin wants an order from head-quarters. Such an excuse made by a general at the head of a large part of the army--or rather such a crime not to support a part of his own command engaged with the enemy, because no special orders from head-quarters prescribed his doing so--such a case or excuse is almost unexampled in the history of warfare. And when such cases happened, then the guilty was not long kept in command. Three bloody groans for Franklin!

_April 6._--George Bancroft has the insight of a genuine historian. Few men, if any, can be compared to him for the clearness, breadth, and justness with which in this war Bancroft comprehends and embraces events and men. Bancroft's judgment is almost faultless, and it is to be regretted that Bancroft, so to speak, is outside of the circle instead of being inside, and in some way among the pilots.

_April 6._--The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War will make the coming generation and the future historian shudder. No one will be able to comprehend how such a McClellan could have been thus long kept in the command of an army, and still less how there could have existed men claiming to have sound reason and heart, and constitute a McClellan party. McClellan is the most disgusting psychological anomaly. It is an evidence how a mental poison rapidly spreads and permeates all. As was repeatedly pointed out in this DIARY, individuals who started the McClellan fetishism, were admirers of the _Southern gentlemen_, were worshippers of slavery, were secret or open partisans of rebellion. Many such subsequently appear as Copperheads, peace men, as Union men, as Conservatives. The other stratum of McClellanism is composed of intriguers. These combined forces, supported by would-be wise ignorance, spread the worship, and poisoned thousands and tens of thousands of honest but not clear-sighted minds. The Report, or rather the investigation was conducted with the utmost fairness; of course Ben Wade could not act otherwise than fairly and nobly. Some critics say that McClellan's case could have been yet more strongly brought out, and the fetish could have been shown to the people in his most disgustingly true nakedness.

_April 6._--The people feel how the treason of the English evilwishers slowly extends through its organs. By Butler, Wade, Grimes and others, the people ask for non-intercourse with the English assassin, who surreptitiously, stealthily under cover of darkness, of legal formality, deals, or attempts to deal, a deadly blow. The American sentimentalists strain to the utmost their soft brains, to find excuses for English treason.

English lordlings, scholars, moralists of the Carlyleian mental perversion comment Homer, instead of being clear sighted commentators of what passes under their noses. The English phrase-mongering philanthropists all with joy smacked their bloody lips at the, by them ardently wished and expected downfall of a noble, free and self-governing people. Tigers, hyenas and jackals! clatter your teeth, smack your lips! but you shall not get at the prey.

_April 7._--The President visits the Potomac army at Falmouth. Seward wished to be of the party, offering to make a stirring speech to the soldiers--that is, to impress the heroes with the notion that in Seward they beheld a still greater hero, a patriot reeking with Unionism and sacrifices, and eventually prepare their votes for the next presidential election. Certain influences took the wind out of Seward's sails, and as a naughty, arrogant boy, he was left behind to bite his nails, and to pour out a logomachy.

_April 7._--I am very uneasy about Charleston. It seems that something works foul. Either they have not men enough, or brains enough. A good artillerist, having confidence in the guns, and having the needed insight how and where to use them, ought to command our forces. Will the iron-clads resist the concentric fire from so numerous batteries?

The diplomats of the _prospective mediation_ and their tails are scared by the elections in Connecticut. Others, however, of that illustrious European body are out-spoken friends of Union and of freedom. The representatives of the American republics are to be relied upon. St. Domingo, Mexico sufficiently teaches all races, _latin_ (_?_) as well as non-latin, that honey-mouthed governmental Europe is an all-devouring wolf under a sheep's skin.

Non-intercourse! no intercourse with England and with France as long as France chooses to be ridden by the _Decembriseur_! Such ought to be the watchword for a long, long time to come.

_April 8._--The New York _Times_ is now boiling with patriotic wrath against McClellan. Very well. But when McClellan captured maple guns at Centerville and Manassas, when he digged mud and graves for our soldiers before Yorktown, and in the Chickahominy, the _Times_ was extatic beyond measure and description, extatic over the matured plans, the gigantic strategy of McClellan--and at that epoch the _Times_ powerfully contributed to confuse the public opinion.

_April 8._--A Mr. Ockford, (or of similar name,) who for many years, was a ship broker in England, advised our government and above all, Mr. Seward, to institute proceedings before the English courts against the building and arming of the iron-clads for the rebels. Seward, of course, snubbed him off with the Sewardian verdict that the jury in England will give or pronounce no verdict of guilty, in our favor, as our jury would not find any one guilty of treason. Good for a Seward.

Patriots from various States, among them Boutwell, now member of Congress from Massachusetts, urged the Cabinet; 1st, to declare peremptorily to the English Government that if the rebel iron-clads are allowed to go out from English ports, our government will consider it as being a deliberate and willful act of hostility; 2d, to publish at once the above declaration, that the English people at large may judge of the affair. Seward opposed such a bold step--Sumner ditto.

_April 9._--I am at a loss to find in history, any government whatever that so little took or takes into account the intrinsic and intellectual fitness of an individual for the office entrusted to him, as does the government of Mr. Lincoln. I cannot imagine that it could have been always so, under previous administrations. It seems that in the opinion of the Executive, not only geniuses, but men of studies, and of special and specific preparation and knowledge run in the streets, crowd the villages and states, and the Executive has only to stretch his hand from the window, to take hold of an unmistakable capacity, etc. The Executive ought to have some experience by this time; but alas, _experientia non docet_ in the White House.

_April 10._--Agitated as my existence has been, I never fell among so much littleness, meanness, servility as here. To avoid it, and not to despair, or rage, or despond, several times a day, it is necessary to avoid contact with politicians, and reduce to few, very few, all intercourse with them. I cannot complain, as I find compensation--but nevertheless, I am afraid that the study and the analysis of so much mud and offal may tell upon me. Physical monstrosities are attractive to physiologists or rather to pathologists. But an anthropologist prefers normal nobleness of mind, and shudders at sight and contact with intellectual and moral crookedness.

_April 11._--Sumter day. Two years elapsed, and treason not yet crushed; Charleston not yet ploughed over and sown with salt; Beauregard still in command, and the snake still keeping at bay the eagle. And all this because in December, 1861, and in January, 1862, McClellan wished not, Seward wished not, and Mr. Lincoln could not decide whether to wish that Charleston and Savannah--defenceless at that time--be taken after the fall of Port Royal. Two years! and the people still bleed, and the exterminating angel strikes not the malefactors, and the earth bursts not, and they are not yet in Gehenna's embrace.

Old patriot Everett made an uncompromising speech. That is by far better than to make a hero out of a McClellan. But the misdeeds of the Administration easily confused such impressionable receptive minds as is Edward Everett's.

_April 11._--The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, discloses how McClellan deliberately ruined General Stone, and I have little doubt that McClellan ruined Fitz-John Porter.

_April 12._--Our navy makes brilliant prizes of Anglo-rebel flags and ships. But Mr. Seward does his utmost to render the labor of our cruisers as difficult and as dangerous as possible. Of course he does it not intentionally, only because he so _masterly masters_ the international laws, the laws and rules of search, the rights and duties of neutrals, etc., and as a genuine incarnation of _fiat justitia_, he is indifferent to national interests and to the national flag.

I am curious to learn whether the truth will ever be generally known concerning the seizure of the Anglo-rebel steamer Peterhoff. Then the people would learn how old Welles bravely defended what _turpe_ Seward had decided to drag in the mire. The people would learn what an utterly ignorant impudence presided over the restoring to England of the Peterhoff's mail bag of a vessel a contrabandist, a blockade runner, and a forger. The people would know how Mr. Seward, aided by Mr. Lincoln, has done all in his power to make impossible the condemnation of the Anglo-rebel property. The people would know how _turpe_ Seward tried to urge and to persuade Neptune Welles to violate the statutes of the country; how the great Secretary of State declared that he cared very little for law, and how he and Lincoln, by a Sultan's firman, directed the decision of the Judge on his bench.

_April 14._--My gloomy forebodings about the attack on Charleston are already partly realized. Beaten off! that is the short solution of a long story. But of course nobody will be at fault. This attack on Charleston to some extent justifies: _parturiunt montes_, etc.

_De profundis clamavi_ for light and some inklings of sense and energy. But to search for sense and energy among counterfeits!... The condition here vividly brings to mind Ovid's

...... ...... quem dixere chaos!

_April 14._--In a letter to the Loyal League of New York, Mr. Seward is out with his--at least--one hundred and fiftieth prophecy. As fate finds a particular pleasure in quickly giving the lie to the inspired prophet, so we have the affair of Charleston, and some other small disasters. Oh, why has Congress forgotten to pass a law forbidding Seward, for decency's sake, to make himself ridiculous? Among others, hear the following query: _Whether this unconquerable and irresistible nation shall suddenly perish through imbecility?_ etc. O Mr. Seward! how can you thus pointedly and mercilessly criticise your own deeds and policy? Seward squints toward the presidency that he may complete that masterly production.

Oh! how the old hacks turn their dizzy heads towards the White House. It would be ludicrous, and the lowest comedy of life, were not the track running through blood and among corpses. I am told that even Halleck squints that way. And why not? All is possible; and Halleck's nag has as long ears as have the nags and hacks of the other race-runners.

_April 14._--Halleck consolidates the regiments and incidentally deprives the army of the best and most experienced officers. The numerically smaller regiment is dissolved in the larger one. But most generally the smaller regiment was the bravest and has seen more fire which melted it. Thus good officers are mustered out and thrown on the pavement, and the enthusiasm for the flag of the regiment destroyed, for its victorious memories, for the recollections of common hardships and all the like noble cements of a military life. Certainly, great difficulty exists to remount or to restore a regiment. But O, Hallecks! O, Thomases! O, McDowells! all of you, genii, or genuises, surmount difficulties.

_April 14._--In a public speech in New York, General Fremont has explained the duty and the obligations of a soldier in a republic. Few, very few, of our striped and starred citizens, and still less those educated at West Point have a comprehension of what a Republican citizen soldier is.

_April 14._--Halleck directly and indirectly exercises a fatal influence on our army. I learn that his book on military not-science largely circulates; above all, in the Potomac Army.

_April 14._--It is the mission of the American people to make all the trials and experiences by which all other nations will hereafter profit. So the social experiment of self-government; the same with various mechanical and commercial inventions. The Americans experiment in political and domestic economy, in the art provided for man's well-being and in the art of killing him. New fire-arms, guns, etc., are now first used.

The until now undecided question between batteries on land and floating ones will be decided in Charleston harbor. Who will have the best, the Monitors or the batteries?

_April 15._--I wrote to Hooker imploring him for the sake of the country, and for the sake of his good name, to put an end to the carousings in his camp, and to sweep out all kind of women, be they wives, sisters, sweethearts or the promiscuous rest of crinolines.

_April 15._--Certain Republican newspapers perform now the same capers to please and puff Seward and Halleck, as they did before to puff McClellan when in power.

_April 16._--Night after night the White House is serenaded. And why not?... From all sides news of brilliant victories on land and on sea; news that Seward's foreign policy is successful; everywhere Halleck's military science carries before it everything, and lickspittles are numberless.

Wild jauchtzend schleudert selbst der Gott der Freude, Den Pechkrantz in das brenene Gebaüde!

My veins and brains almost bursting to witness all this. But for ... it would be all over.

... tibi desinet.

_April 17._--I met one of the best and of the most radical ex-members of Congress. He was very desponding, almost despairing at the condition of affairs. He returned from the White House, and notwithstanding his despair, tried to explain to me how Mr. Lincoln's eminent and matchless civil and military capacities finally will save the country. _Et tu, Brute_, exclaimed I, without the classical accent and meaning. The ex-honorable had in his pocket a nomination for an influential office.

_April 17._--Immense inexhaustible means in men, money, beasts, equipment, war material devoured and disappearing in the bottomless abyss of helplessness. The counterfeits ask for more, always for more, and more of the high-minded people grudge not its blood.

_Labitur ex oculis ... gutta meis._

A Forney puffs Cameron over Napoleon! A true American gentlewoman as patriotic as patriotism itself, quivering under the disastrous condition of affairs at home and abroad, exclaimed: "that at least the Southern leaders redeem the honor of the American name by their indomitable bravery, their iron will and their fertility of resources." What was to be answered?

_April 18._--As long as England is ruled by her aristocracy, whether Tories or Whigs, a Hannibalian hate ought to be the creed of every American. Let the government of England pass into the hands of JOHN S. MILL, and into those of the Lancashire working classes, and then the two peoples may be friends.

_April 18._--Hooker is to move. If Hooker brings out the army victorious from the bad strategic position wherein the army was put by Halleck-Burnside, then the people can never sufficiently admire Hooker's genius. Such a manoeuvre will be a revelation.

_April 18._--I learn that General Hunter has about seven thousand disposable men in his whole department, for the attack of Charleston. If he is to storm the batteries by land, then Hunter has not men enough to do it; it is therefore folly and crime to order, or to allow, the attack of the defenses of Charleston.

_April 18._--Mr. Seward has not at all given up his firm decision to violate the national statutes and the international rules, by insisting upon the restoration to England of the mails of that Anglo-Piratic vessel, the Peterhoff. A mail on a blockade-runner enjoys no immunity, since regular mail steamers, or at least mail agents and carriers are established by England. Even previously, neutral private vessels could not always claim the immunity for the mail, when they are caught in an unlawful trade. But, of course, the State Department knows better.

In the case of the ship Labuan, an English blockade-runner, Mr. Seward, backed by Mr. Lincoln, ordered the judge how to decide, ordered the judge to give up the prize, and Mr. Seward urged the English agents not to lose time in prosecuting American captors for costs and damages. The Labuan was a good prize, but Mr. Seward is the incarnation of wisdom and of justice!

_April 20._--The not quite heavenly trio--Lincoln, Seward and Halleck--maintain, and find imbeciles and lickspittles enough to believe them, that they, the trio, could not as yet, act decidedly in the Emancipation question, they being in this, as in other questions, too far in advance of the people. What blasphemy! Those _lumina mundi_ believe that the people will forget their records. To be sure, the Americans, good-natured as they are, easily forget the misdeeds of _yesterday_, but this _yesterday_ shall be somehow recalled to their memory.

If all the West Pointers were like Grant, Rosecrans, Hooker, Barnard and thousands of them throughout all grades, then West Point would be a blessing for the country. Unhappily, hitherto, the small, bad clique of West Point engineers No. one, exercised a preponderating influence on the conduct of the war, and thus West Point became in disrespect, nay, in horror. I believe that the good West Pointers are more numerous than the altogether bad ones, but they often mar their best qualities by a certain, not altogether admirable, _esprit du corps_.

_April 20._--The generation crowding on this fogyish one will sit in court of justice over the evil-doers, over the helpless, over the egotists who are to-day at work. That generation will begin the assizes during the lifetime of these great leaders in Administration, in politics, in war.

_Discite justitiam moniti nec temere divos!_

_April 20._--Yesterday, April 19th, Mr. Lincoln and his Aide, Halleck, went to Acquia Creek to visit Hooker, to have a peep into his plans, and, of course to babble about them. I hope Hooker will most politely keep his own secrets.

_April 21._--The American people never will and never can know and realize the whole immensity of McClellan's treasonable incapacity, and to what extent all subsequent disasters have their roots in the inactivity of McClellan during 1861-62. Whatever may be the official reports, or private investigations, chronicles, confessions, memoirs, all the facts will never be known. Never will it be known how almost from the day when he was intrusted with the command, McClellan was without any settled plans, always hesitating, irresolute; how almost hourly he (deliberately or not, I will not decide) stuffed Mr. Lincoln with lies, and did the same to others members of the Cabinet. The evidences thereof are scattered in all directions, and it is impossible to gather them all. Mr Lincoln could testify--if he would. Almost every day I learn some such fact, but I could not gather and record them all. Seward mostly sided with McClellan, and so did Blair, _par nobile fratrum_.

Few, if any, detailed reports of the campaigns and battles fought by McClellan have been sent by him to the President or to the War Department. Such reports ought to be made immediately; so it is done in every well regulated government. It is the duty of the staff of the army to prepare the like reports. But McClellan did in his own way, and his reports, if ever he sends them, would only be disquisitions elaborated _ex post_, and even apart from their truthfulness--null.