Chapter 2

Stanton's magnificent report states that there are about 700,000 men under arms; yet this tremendous force is paralysed by the inactivity of most of the generals; those in the West, however, forming a bright and truly honorable exception. But, to be candid, how can activity and dash be expected from generals who have at their head, a shallow brained pedant like Halleck? Napoleon had about 500,000 men, when, in between four and five months, he marched from the Rhine to Moscow. Yet he had the aid of no railroad, on land, no steam, that practical annihilator of distance, no electric telegraph, with which to be in all but instantaneous communication with his distant generals, and had not similar material resources.

_Dec. 10._--Mr. Seward's long correspondence with Mr. Adams shows to Europe that Mr. Seward imitated the rebels, and tried to frighten England with the bugbear of King Cotton; and also that he has no solid and abiding convictions whatever. Now, he preaches emancipation, yet, at the beginning of his _great_ diplomatic activity, he openly sided with slavery; aye, he is still willing to save it for the sake of the Union, and, above all, and before all, for his own chances for the next Presidency.

_Dec. 10._--Burnside has finally crossed the Rappahannock. Of course I do not know the respective positions. But I am sure that if the rebels have not a perfectly enormous advantage of position, and if the leading of the generals be worthy of the courage of their men, the victory must be ours. Oh! were all our generals Hookers, and not Burnsides!

General McDowell's Court of Inquiry produces some strange revelations. The inquiry will not end in making a thorough general of McDowell. He may have been somewhat unfortunate, no doubt; but his want of good fortune was at least equalled by his want of good generalship. I, and many others besides, were quite mistaken in our early estimate of McDowell. He should not so easily have swallowed the second Bull Run. He should at least have been wounded, if only ever so slightly; his best friends must wish that. But to be defeated, and come out without even a scratch! What a digestion the man must have for the hardest kinds of humiliation! But neither the President nor that curse of the country, McClellan, has great reason to plume himself much upon his share in the revelations that are made in the course of this Inquiry. McDowell himself seems to have been intended, by nature for a scheming and adroit politician. * * * *

_Dec. 10._--The Congress feels the ground, hesitates, and apparently lacks the necessary energy to come to a determination. Lincoln, even such as he is, contrives to humbug most of the Congressmen. Well! The first of January is close at hand, and Seward, the Congressional cook, will concoct unpalatable and costly dishes for Congressional digestion. Seward is the incarnation of confusion, and of political faithlessness.

I have only now discovered certain of the reasons why the Battle of Antietam, so bravely fought by our army, had no _ensemble_ and such marvelously poor results. Burnside, with his corps, got into line many hours too late. The rebels were thus enabled to concentrate on the wing opposed to Hooker and Sumner, the right wing and centre of the rebels being for the time unthreatened. And that is generalship! The blame of a blunder so glaring, and in its effect so mischievous, attaches equally to Burnside and to McClellan. The victory, such as it was, was due to the subordinate generals, and to the heroic bravery of the rank and file of the army.

When Burnside was invested with the command of the Army of the Potomac, he for nearly twenty-four hours retained McClellan in camp, with the intention of returning the command of the army to him if the rebels had attacked, as it was expected they would, during Sunday and Monday.

_Dec. 13._--Night. Fight at Fredericksburgh. No news. O God!

_Dec. 14._--As the consequence of Halleck-Burnside's slowness, our troops storm positions which are said to be impregnable by nature, and still farther strengthened by artificial works.

The President is even worse than I had imagined him to be. He has no earnestness, but is altogether in the hands of Seward and Halleck. He cannot, even in this supreme crisis, be earnest and serious for half an hour. Such was the severe but terribly true verdict passed upon him by Fessenden of Maine.

_Dec. 15._--Slaughter and infamy! Slaughter of our troops who fought like Titans, though handled in a style to reflect nothing but infamy upon their commanders. When the rebel works had become impregnable, then, but not until then, our troops were hurled against them! The flower of the army has thus been butchered by the surpassing stupidity of its commanders. The details of that slaughter, and of the imbecility displayed by our officers in high command,--those details, when published, will be horrible. The Lincoln-Seward-Halleck-influence gave Burnside the command because he was to take care of the army. And how Burnside has fulfilled their expectations! It seems that the best way to take care of an army is to make it victorious.

My brave and patriotic Wadsworth has gone in the field, also his two sons; one of them, (Tick,) was at Fredericksburgh, and his bravery was remarkable, even among all the heroism of that most glorious and most accursed day. How many such patriots as Wadsworth, can we boast of? Yet the miserable Halleck had the impudence to say--"Wadsworth may go wherever he pleases, even if he pleases to go to Hell!"

Hell itself, would be too good a place for Halleck; imbeciles are not admitted there!

_Dec. 17._--The details are coming in. The disaster of our army is terrible--indescribable; the heroic people bleeds, bleeds! And all this calamity and all this suffering and humiliation, are brought on by the stupidity of Burnside and Halleck, or both of them. The curse of the people ought to rest for centuries upon the very names of the authors of such frightful disaster. They are fiends, yea, worse, even, than the very fiends themselves.

Why, even the very rabble in Constantinople would storm the seraglio after such a massacre. But here--oh, here, it just reminds Mr. Lincoln of a little anecdote.

_Dec. 17._--I meet with but few such as Wade, Grimes, Chandler and other radicals in both Houses of Congress, who seem to feel all the heart burning and bitterness of soul at this awful Fredericksburgh disaster. The real criminals, those who ought, in the agonies of a great shame, call upon the rocks and the mountains to fall upon them not, blush not, sorrow not.

In many of the general public, I have no doubt that the feeling of shame and sympathy, are blunted by these repeated military calamities, and by Mr. Lincoln's undaunted i..........

* * * * * and men, Have wept enough, for what? To weep, To weep again.

_Dec. 17._--About ten days ago, Mr. Seward again sent forth to Europe and to her Cabinets, one of his stale, and by no means Delphic oracles, predicting the success of Burnside's campaign, and immediately follows a bloody and disgraceful calamity! Such is always the result of Seward's prophecies! A diplomat calls Seward the evil eye of the Cabinet, and of the country. I suggested to some of the senators that a resolution be passed prohibiting Mr. Seward from playing either the prophet or the fool.

Burnside took care of the army, no doubt, but it was of the rebel army. Our soldiers have been brought by him to the block, to an easy slaughter, he himself being some few miles in the rear, and having between him the river, and the intervening miles of land. All this, however, was according to the regulations, and on the most approved Halleck-McClellan fashion of fighting great battles.

_Dec. 18._--The disaster was inaugurated by the shelling of Fredericksburgh. One hundred and forty-seven (147!) guns playing upon a few houses. It was the play of a maddened child, exhibiting in equal proportions, reckless ferocity and egregious stupidity; and it is difficult to find one dyslogistic term which will adequately describe and condemn it.

From what I can already gather of the details of the attack, it may be peremptorily concluded that Burnside, Sumner, and above all, Franklin, are utterly incompetent of a skillful and effective handling of great masses of troops. They attacked by brigades, positions so formidable, that if they could possibly be carried by any exertion of human skill and strength, they could only be carried by large masses impetuously hurled against them. Franklin seems especially to have acted ill in not at once throwing in 10,000 men to be followed rapidly and again and again by 10,000 more. In that wise and only in that wise, he might possibly have broken and turned the enemy, and thrown him on his own centre. It is said that Franklin had 60,000. If so, he could easily have risked some 20,000 in the first onslaught. Sixty thousand! Great God! Why, it is an army in itself, in the hands of a general at all deserving of that name. If those great West Pointers had only even the slightest idea of military history! More battles have been fought and won with 60,000 men, and with fewer still, than with larger numbers, and at Fredericksburgh Franklin's force formed only a wing against an enemy whose whole army could number but little more than 60,000. I want the reports with the full and positive details.

The clear-sighted and warlike TRIBUNE discovered in Burnside high, brilliant, and soldier-like qualities--admirably borne out and illustrated no doubt, by the Fredericksburgh butchery! To the hospital of imbeciles with all such imbeciles!

The _Times_ was manly in its appreciation, and flunkeyed to no one under hand, that is, confidentially and for newspaper publication.

Mr. Seward reveals to the world at large, that, besides his volume of 700 pages, containing the last diplomatic correspondence, he has still an equal number of masterpieces as yet not published. What a dreadful dysentery of despatch-writing the poor man and his still more afflicted readers must labor under.

The Lincoln-Seward policy, has rebuilt the awful Democratic party, which was broken up, prostrated in the dust. Lincoln--Seward--Weed, partially emasculated the Republican party, and may even emasculate the thus far thoroughly virile and devoted patriotism of the people.

A helpless imbecile in the hands of a cunning and selfish and ruthless charlatan, is the sight that daily meets our eyes in Washington.

General Bayard, one of the slaughtered at Fredericksburgh, was a true Bayard of the army, and one of the very few West Pointers free from conceit, that corrosive and terribly prevalent malady of the West Point clique.

_Dec. 18._--Senators waking up to their duties, and to the consciousness of their power. These patriots have said to Seward, _Averte Sathanas_, and overboard he goes, after having done as much evil as only _he_ could do.

The most contradictory rumors are in circulation about Stanton. I cannot find out the truth. I do not believe all that is said, but it is necessary to put the rumors on record. It is said then, that Stanton stands up for the butchers and asses in the army and in his department. I believe that in all this, there is not a single word of truth; but if it were true, then I should say, Stanton is ruined by bad company, and down with him and with them!

_Quoniam sic Fata tulerunt._ But worthy Senators and Representatives, believe still in Stanton, and so do I; only the Seward-Blair-McClellan clique tears Stanton's reputation to pieces. Stanton seems to be, in some measure, infatuated with Halleck, who, perhaps, humbugs Stanton with military technicalities, which Halleck so well knows how to pass current for military science.

_Dec. 20._--The American generals, at least those in the Army of the Potomac, for the sake of shirking responsibility, maintain that when once in line of battle, they must rigidly abide by the orders given to them. No doubt, such is the military law and rule, but it is susceptible of exceptions. The generals of the Potomac shun the exceptions, and thus deprive their action of all spontaneity. Perhaps, indeed, spontaneity of action is not among their military gifts. Thus we have from them, none of those _coups d'éclat_, those sudden, brilliant, and impetuously improvised dashes, which so often decide the fate of the day, and turn imminent defeat and partial panic into glorious and crowning victory. We find none such, if we except some actions of Hooker and Kearney, on a small scale, and at the beginning of the campaign in the Chickahominy, or the Peninsula. The most celebrated _coups d'éclat_ in general military history, have mostly been, so to speak, the children of inspiration, seizing Time by the forelock,--thus using opportunity which sometimes exists but for a few minutes, and thus a doubtful struggle terminates in a brilliant success. At such critical moments, the commander of a wing, or a corps, nay, even a division, ought to have the courage, the lofty self-abnegation, and firm confidence in his star or good luck, and still more in the enduring pluck of his men, and boldly strike for the accomplishment of that which the "Orders" have not mentioned or foreseen. Such a general acts on his own inspiration, and at the same time reports to the Commander-in-Chief, what he has determined upon. If instead of acting thus promptly, he sends and waits for further orders, the auspicious opportunity may pass away; the decisive moments in a battle are very rapid, and a single hour lost, loses the day, or reduces the results of a victory.

I respectfully submit these undeniable but much disregarded truths to the Hallecks, McClellans, McDowells, and other great West Pointers.

_Dec. 20._--The political cesspool is deeper, broader, filthier and more feculent than ever. Seward is triumphant, and the patriots have very much elongated countenances.

_Dec. 21._--Senator Wilson has learned from Halleck, Burnside, and from some other and similarly _great_ captains, that the affair of Fredericksburgh, and the recrossing of the river, brilliantly compares with the countermarchings of Wagram, and with that celebrated crossing of the Danube. As there is not, in reality, a single point of similitude, the comparison is well selected, and does great honor to the judgment of the military wiseacres. At all events, never was the memory of a Napoleon, a Massena, or a Davoust, more ignominiously desecrated than by this comparison.

_Dec. 22._--So, then, Sathanas Seward remains, and Mr. Lincoln scorns the advice of the wisest and most patriotic Senators. To be snubbed by Lincoln and Seward, is the greatest of all possible humiliations. Border-state politicians, Harrises, Brownings and other etceteras of grain, are the confidential advisers. Political manhood is utterly, and to all seeming, irretrievably lost.

Stanton still holds with Seward. _Embrassons nous, et que cela finisse._

How brilliantly do even the very basest times of any government whatever, Parliamentary, royal or despotic, compare with what I now daily see here in the capital of the great republic!

Since the earliest existence of political parties, rarely, if ever, has a party been in such a difficult, and, at times, even disgraceful position, as that of the patriots of both houses of Congress. Against the combined attacks of all stripes of traitors, such as ultra Conservatives, Constitutionalists, Copperheads and pure and impure Democrats, the patriots must defend an administration which they themselves condemn, and with the personnel of which, (Stanton and Wells excepted,) they have no sympathy and no identity of ideas. They must defend an administration which opposes even measures which they, the patriots, demand,--an administration which, in the recent elections, either betrayed or disgraced the whole party, and which brought into suspicion, if not into actual contempt, the name, nay, even the principles of the Republicans. And thus the patriots have the dead weight to support, and are wholly unsupported. The narrow-minded and shallow Republican press, has no comprehension of the difficulty of the position in which the patriots are placed; and that press, being in various ways connected with the administration, rarely, if ever, supports the patriots, and even mostly neutralises their best and noblest efforts. Thus, in the move against Seward, and for a reform in the Cabinet, the enlightened and patriotic Republican press of New York, was either persistently mute or hostile to the movement. Every day I am the more firmly convinced that Seward is the great stumbling block alike to Mr. Lincoln and the country at large.

_Dec, 22._--Utterly incapable as is McClellan, and absolutely unfitted by nature to be a great captain as is Burnside, yet I think it quite clear that neither of them would have blundered quite so terribly if he had been provided with a really competent, zealous and faithful staff, as the generals of continental Europe invariably are. But it seems that here, neither the generals nor the government even desire to understand the true nature, duty, and value of the staff of an army, or what the chief of such a staff ought to know and ought to do. What, in fact, can we at all reasonably expect from a Halleck! After all, however, and shallow as are his brains, this mock Carnot must have read books on military science; and yet he has not learned either the use or the composition of a staff for an army! Had he done so, he would have organized a staff for himself, and one for each of the commanders in the field. It is true that in this country there is no school of staffs, and West Pointers are generally ignorant on that point. Nevertheless, with a little good will and care, it would be easy enough to find intelligent officers of all grades fit for staff duties as arranged for staff officers in Europe. But then, the necessary good will and good judgment are wanting in the head of this military organization. And this Halleck, this Halleck is a mere mockery, a mere sciolist, a shallow pretender to military science. He may have the capacity to translate a book, but nothing of all that he translates effects any hold upon his brain, or he would, long before now, have done something towards organising the army. A general inspector is the first necessity. Then establish the necessary proportions of each arm of the service, _i. e._, of infantry, cavalry and artillery for each division. Then organise the cavalry as a body. When you do this, or even a considerable part of all this, oh, sham-Carnot, Halleck! then your chance to be considered a military authority will be established. Oh, science, oh, insulted science! How desecrated is thy name in the high places here, and especially on the right and left of the White House. And oh! you really great and intelligent American PEOPLE, how ignominiously you are cheated of your blood, your time, your money, and most of all, of your so recently magnificent national reputation!

What your military wiseacres show you as an organized army, would actually thrill, as with the death-shudder, any European military organizer.

_Dec. 23._--I learn that the day following the butchery at Fredericksburgh, Burnside wished to renew the attack. What madness! The generals protested, and Burnside, greatly exasperated, declared that at the head of his former corps, the 9th, he would himself storm the miniature Torres Vedras. If all this is true, then Burnside is weaker headed than I had judged him to be; but I will not do him the injustice to say that he really intended to play a mere farce. What, in the name of common sense, could he do with a single corps, when the whole army was repulsed?

I am warned by a friend, that the Army of the Potomac is so infected with McClellanism, that is to say, by presumption, intriguing, envy and misconception of what is true generalship,--that the army must undergo the process of strong purification, fumigation, pruning and weeding, (and especially among the higher branches,) before it can ever again be made truly useful and reliable.

_Dec. 22._--Burnside's report. I am sure that the great luminaries of the press, and the declaimers, the intriguants and the imbeciles, will be thrown into fits of ecstatic admiration of what they will call the manly and straight-forward conduct of Burnside in assuming the responsibility and confessing his own fault. But what else could he do? And if he acted thus in obedience to the orders of Halleck, then instead of manliness, his conduct is almost treasonable towards the people, for in withholding the truth as to the orders given by Halleck, he gives that incarnation of calamity the power to repeat the butchery and ensure the ill success of our armies.

The report is altogether unsoldierly; it is fussy and inflated; a full blown specimen of the pompously inane. How can Burnside venture to say that after the repulse, during three days he expected the enemy to leave his stronghold and attack him--Burnside? The rebels never did anything to justify such a supposition. They are neither idiots nor madmen, and only from a McClellan, or some bright pupils of the McClellan school, could such imbecility, such gratuitously ruinous playing into the hands of an enemy be expected. A commander ought to be on the watch for any mistake that his antagonist may commit, but he is not justified in setting that antagonist down as an ass. For two days the army was unnecessarily kept under the guns of the enemy, that is the truth, and I will make the truth known, no matter who may try to conceal it. Here, for the present, I stop in sheer and uncontrollable disgust. By and by, however, I will return to the consideration of this report.

Oh! American people! In so very many respects, truly great people! Far, very far beyond my poor powers of expression are the great love and veneration with which ever and always I look upon you. But allow me, pray allow me to use the frank familiarity of a true friend, so far as just plainly to tell you, that even I, your sincere friend, should love you none the less, and certainly should hold you in all the greater reverence, were you not quite so ultra-favorable in judgment of your civil and military rulers and pastors and masters and nincompoops generally!

Further back in this diary, I termed Mr. Secretary Chase a _passive patriot_. _Peccavi._ And here let me write down my recantation! Chase exerted himself for the retaining of Seward in the cabinet, and it was by Chase alone that the efforts of the patriots to expel Seward, were baffled. And yet, from the first day of the official assemblage of this cabinet down to the day of the meeting of the present session of Congress, Chase was more vigorously vicious than any other living man in daily, hourly, _all the time_, denunciation of Seward,--of course, behind Seward's back! Several insoluble problems, no doubt, there are; but there is not one thing, physical or not physical, which so completely defies any comprehension and baffles my most persistent inquiry, as just this.