The Project Gutenberg EBook of Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863, by Adam Gurowski This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 Author: Adam Gurowski Release Date: June 28, 2009 [EBook #29264] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DIARY *** Produced by David Edwards, Christine P. Travers and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Transcriber's note: Obvious printer's errors have been corrected. Hyphenation and accentuation have been standardised, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained. Page 94: The word "of" has been added in "If the Army of the Potomac". DIARY, FROM NOVEMBER 18, 1862, TO OCTOBER 18, 1863. BY ADAM GUROWSKI. VOLUME SECOND. NEW-YORK: Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway. MDCCCLXIV. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864, By GEO. W. CARLETON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. Of all the peoples known in history, the American people most readily forgets YESTERDAY; I publish this DIARY in order to recall YESTERDAY to the memory of my countrymen. GUROWSKI. WASHINGTON, October, 1863. CONTENTS. NOVEMBER, 1862. Secretary Chase — French Mediation — The Decembriseur — Diplomatic Bendings. DECEMBER, 1862. President's Message — Political Position — Fredericksburgh — Fog — Accident — Crisis in the Cabinet — Secretary Chase — Burnside — Halleck — The Butchers — The Lickspittle Republican Press — War Committee Patriots — Youth — People — Ring out. JANUARY, 1863. Proclamation — Parade — Halleck — Diplomats — Herodians — Inspired Men — War Powers — Rosecrans — Butler — Seward — Doctores Constitutionis — Hogarth — Rhetors — European Enemies — Second Sight — Senator Wright, the Patriot — Populus Romanus — Future Historian — English People — Gen. Mitchel — Hooker in Command — Staffs — Arming Africo-Americans — Thurlow Weed, &c. FEBRUARY, 1863. The Problems before the People — The Circassian — Department of State and International Laws — Foresight — Patriot Stanton and the Rats — Honest Conventions — Sanitary Commission — Harper's Ferry — John Brown — The Yellow Book — The Republican Party — Epitaph — Prize Courts — Suum cuique — Academy of Sciences — Democratic Rank and File, etc. MARCH, 1863. Press — Ethics — President's Powers — Seward's Manifestoes — Cavalry — Letters of Marque — Halleck — Sigel — Fighting — McDowell — Schalk — Hooker — Etat Major-General — Gold — Cloaca Maxima — Alliance — Burnside — Halleckiana — Had we but Generals, how often Lee could have been destroyed, etc. APRIL, 1863. Lord Lyons — Blue Book — Diplomats — Butler — Franklin — Bancroft — Homunculi — Fetishism — Committee on the Conduct of the War — Non-intercourse — Peterhoff — Sultan's Firman — Seward — Halleck — Race — Capua — Feint — Letter-writing — England — Russia — American Revolution — Renovation — Women — Monroe Doctrine, etc. MAY, 1863. Advance — Crossing — Chancellorsville — Hooker — Staff — Lee — Jackson — Stunned — Suggestions — Meade — Swinton — La Fayette — Happy Grant — Rosecrans — Halleck — Foote — Elections — Re-elections — Tracks — Seward — 413, etc. JUNE, 1863. Banks — "The Enemy Crippled" — Count Zeppelin — Hooker — Stanton — "Give Him a Chance" — Mr. Lincoln's Looks — Rappahannock — Slaughter — North Invaded — "To be Stirred up" — Blasphemous Curtin — Banquetting — Groping — Retaliation — Foote — Hooker — Seward — Panama — Chase — Relieved — Meade — Nobody's Fault — Staffs, etc. JULY, 1863. Eneas — Anchises — General Warren — Aldie — General Pleasanton — Superior Mettle — Gettysburgh — Cholera Morbus — Vicksburgh — Army of Heroes — Apotheosis — "Not Name the Generals" — Indian Warfare — Politicians — Spittoons — Riots — Council of War — Lords and Lordlings — Williamsport — Shame — Wadsworth — "To meet the Empress Eugénie," etc. AUGUST, 1863. 11 22 61 119 159 182 215 238 257 Stanton — Twenty Thousand — Canadians — Peterhoff — Coffey — Initiation — Electioneering — Reports — Grant — McClellan — Belligerent Rights — Menagerie — Watson — Jury — Democrats — Bristles — "Where is Stanton?" — "Fight the Monster" — Chasiana — Luminaries — Ballistic — Political Economy, etc. SEPTEMBER, 1863. Jeff Davis — Incubuerunt — O, Youth! — Lucubrations — Genuine Europe — It is Forgotten — Fremont — Prof. Draper — New Yorkers — Senator Sumner's Gauntlet — Prince Gortschakoff — Governor Andrew — New Englanders — Re-elections — Loyalty — Cruizers — Matamoras — Hurrah for Lincoln — Rosecrans — Strategy — Sabine Pass, etc. OCTOBER, 1863. Aghast — Firing — Supported — Russian Fleet — Opposition — Amor scelerated — Cautious — Mastiffs — Grande Guerre — Manœuvring — Tambour battant — Warning, etc. DIARY. NOVEMBER, 1862. Secretary Chase — French Mediation — the Decembriseur — Diplomatic Bendings. November 18.—In the street a soldier offered to sell me the pay already several months overdue to him. As I could not help him, as gladly I would have done, being poor, he sold it to a curb-stone broker, a street note-shaver. I need not say that the poor soldier sustained a loss of twenty-five per cent. by the operation! He wanted to send the money home to his poor wife and children; yet one fourth of it was thus given into the hands of a stay-at-home speculator. Alas, for me! I could not save the poor fellow from the remorseless shaver, but I could and did join him in a very energetic cursing of Chase, that at once pompous and passive patriot. This induced me to enter upon a further and more particular investigation, and I found that hundreds of similar cases were of almost daily occurrence; and that this cheating of the soldiers out of their nobly and patriotically earned pay, may quite fairly be denounced as rather the rule than as the exception. The army is unpaid! Unspeakable infamy! Before,—long before the intellectually poor occupant of the White House, long before any civil employé, big or little, the ARMY ought to be paid. Common humanity, common sense, and sound policy affirm this; and common decency, to say nothing about chivalric feelings, adds that when paymasters are sent to the army at all, their first payments should be made to the rank and file; the generals and their subordinate officers to be paid, not before, but afterwards. Oh! for the Congress, for the Congress to meet once again! My hope is in the Congress, to resist, and sternly put an end to, such heaven-defying and man-torturing injustice as now braves the curses of outraged men, and the anger of God. How this pompous Chase disappoints every one, even those who at first were inclined to be even weakly credulous and hopeful of his official career. And why is Stanton silent? He ought to roar. As for Lincoln—he, ah! * * * * The curses of all the books of all the prophets be upon the culprits who have thus compelled our gallant and patriotic soldiery to mingle their tears with their own blood and the blood of the enemy! Nov. 18.—Again Seward assures Lord Lyons that the national troubles will soon be over, and that the general affairs of the country "stand where he wanted them." Seward's crew circulate in the most positive terms, that the country will be pacified by the State Department! England, moved by the State papers and official notes—England, officially and non-officially, will stop the iron-clads, built and launched in English ports and harbors for the use of the rebels, and for the annoyance and injury of the United States. England, these Americans say, England, no doubt, has said some hard words, and has been guilty of some detestably treacherous actions; but all will probably be settled by the benign influence of Mr. Seward's despatches, which, as everyone knows, are perfectly irresistible. How the wily Palmerston must chuckle in Downing Street. The difference between Seward and a real statesman, is this: that a statesman is always, and very wisely, chary about committing himself in writing, and only does it when compelled by absolutely irresistible circumstances, or by temptations brilliant enough to overrule all other considerations; for, such a statesman never for one moment forgets or disregards the old adage which saith that "Verba volant, scripta manent." But Seward, on the contrary, literally revels in a flood of ink, and fancies that the more he writes, the greater statesman he becomes. At the beginning of this month, I wrote to the French minister, M. Mercier, a friendly and respectful note, warning him against meddling with politicians and busybodies. I told him that, before he could even suspect it, such men would bring his name before the public in a way neither pleasant nor profitable to him. M. Mercier took it in good part, and cordially thanked me for my advice. 286 310 338 Nov. 19.—Burnside means well, and has a good heart; but something more is required to make a capable captain, more especially in such times as those in which we are living. It is said that his staff is well organized; God be praised for that, if it really is so. In that case, Burnside will be the first among the loudly-lauded and self-conceited West-Point men, forcibly to impress both the military and the civilian mind in America, with a wholesome consciousness of the paramount importance to an army of a thoroughly competent and trustworthy staff. The division of the army into three grand corps is good; it is at once wise and well-timed, following the example set by Napoleon, when he invaded Russia in 1812. If his subordinate generals will but do well, I have entire confidence in Hooker. He is the man for the time and for the place. As a fighting man, Sumner is fully and unquestionably reliable; but I have my doubts about Franklin. He is cold, calculating, and ambitious, and he has the especially bad quality of being addicted to the alternate blowing of hot and cold. Burnside did a good thing in confiding to General Siegel a separate command. The New York Times begins to mend its bad ways; but how long will it continue in the better path? Nov. 20.—England stirs up and backs up rebellion and disunion here; but, in Europe, for the sake of the unity of barbarism, Islamism, and Turkey, England throttles, and manacles, and lays prostrate beneath the feet of the Osmanli, the Greeks, the Sclavi, the heroic Montenegrins. England is the very incarnation of a treachery and a perfidy previously unexampled in the history of the world. The Punica fides, so fiercely denounced and so bitterly satirized by the historians and poets of old Rome, was truthful if compared to the Fides Anglica of our own day. Nov. 22.—Our army seems to be massed so as to be able to wedge itself in between Jackson in the valley and Lee at Gordonsville. By a bold manœuvre, each of them could be separately attacked, and, I firmly believe, destroyed. But, unfortunately, boldness and manœuvre, that highest gift, that supreme inspiration of the consummate captain, have no abiding place in the bemuddled brains of the West-Pointers, who are a dead weight and drag-chain upon the victimised and humiliated Army of the Potomac. Nov. 25.—The Army is stuck fast in the mud, and the march towards Fredericksburgh is not at all unlikely to end in smoke. There seems to be an utter absence of executive energy. Why not mask our movements before Gordonsville from the observation of Lee? Or, if preferable, what is to hinder the interposition of un rideau vivant, a living curtain, in the form of a false attack, a feint in considerable force, behind which the whole army might be securely thrown across the Rappahannock, by which at least two days' march would be gained on Lee, and our troops would be on the direct line for Fredericksburg, if Fredericksburg is really to be the base for future operations. In this way, the army would have marched against Fredericksburg on both sides of the river. Or, supposing those plans to be rejected, why not throw a whole army corps at once, say 40,000 to 50,000 strong, across the Rappahannock. On either plan, I repeat it, at least two days' march would have been stolen upon Lee; three or four days of forced marches would have been healthy for our army, and a bloodless victory would have been obtained by the taking of the seemingly undefended Fredericksburg. A dense cloud enveloped this whole enterprise, and it is not even improbable, that the campaign may become a dead failure even before it has accomplished the half of its projected and loudly vaunted course. But bold conceptions, and energetic movements to match them, are just about as possible to Halleck or Burnside as railroad speed to the tedious tortoise. Nov. 25.—Oh! So Louis Napoleon could not keep quiet. He offers his mediation, which, in plain English, means his moral support to the South. Oh! that enemy to the whole human race. That Decembriseur.[1] Our military slowness, if nothing else is the matter, our administrative and governmental helplessness, and Seward's lying and all-confusing foreign policy have encouraged foreign impertinence and foreign meddling. I have all along anticipated them as an at least very possible result of the above mentioned causes. [See vol. I of the Diary.] Nevertheless, I scarcely expected such results to appear so soon. Perhaps this same impertinent French action may prove a second French faux pas, to follow in the wake of the first and very egregious faux pas in Mexico. The best that we can say for the Decembriseur is, that he is getting old. England refuses to join in his at once wild and atrocious schemes, and makes a very Tomfool of the bloody Fox of the Tuileries. My, Russia—ah! I am very confident of that—will refuse to join in the dirty and treacherous conspiracy for the preservation of slavery. Well for mediation. But Mr. Decembriseur, what think you and your diplomatic lackeys; what judgment and what determination do you and they form as to the terms and the termination, too, of your diabolical scheme? Descend, sir, from your shilly-shally generalities and verbal fallacies. Is it to be a commercial union, this hobby of your minister here? What is it; let us in all plainness of speech know what it is that you really and positively intend. Propound to us the plain meaning and scope of your imperial proposition. Nov. 27.—Lee, with his army, marches or marched on the south side of the river, in a parallel to the line of Burnside on the north side of the river, and Jackson quietly, but quickly follows. They are at Fredericksburg, and our army looms up, calm, but stern; still, but defiant and menacing. I heartily wish that Burnside may be successful, and that I may prove to have been a false prophet. But the great Fatum, FATE, seems to declare against Burnside, and Fate generally takes sides with bold conceptions and their energetic execution. Nov. 28.—The French despatch-scheme reads very like a Washington concoction, and does not at all bear the marks of Parisian origin. I find in it whole phrases which, for months past, I have repeatedly heard from the French minister here. Perhaps Mr. Mercier, in his turn, may have caught many of Mr. Seward's much-cherished generalities, unintelligible, very probably, even to himself, and quite certainly so to every one but himself. Perhaps, I say, Mr. Mercier may have caught up some of them, and making them up at hap- hazard into a macedoine, a hash, a hotch-potch, has served up the second-hand and heterogeneous mess to his master in Paris. The despatch expresses the fear of a servile war; this may very well have been copied from Mr. Seward's despatch to Mr. Adams, (May, 1862,) wherein Seward attempted to frighten England by a prophecy of a servile war in this country. Nov. 30.—Mr. Seward semi-officially and conveniently accepts the French impudence. Computing the time and space, the scheme corresponds with McClellan's inactivity after Antietam, and with the raising of the banner of the Copperheads. I spoke of this before, (see Diary for November and December, 1861, in Vol. I.) and repeatedly warned Stanton. Nov. 30.—Mercier, the French diplomat, rapidly gravitates towards the Copperheads—Democrats. Is he acting thus in obedience to orders? After all, some of the diplomats here, and especially those of what call themselves the "three great powers," almost openly sympathize and side with secessionists, and patronize Copperheads, traitors, and spies. The exceptions to this rule are but few; strictly speaking, indeed, I should except only one young man. Some diplomats justify this conduct on the plea that the Republican Congressmen are "great bores," who will not play at cards, or dine and drink copiously; accomplishments in which the Secesh was so pre-eminent as to win his way to the inner depths of the diplomatic heart. The people, I am sure, will heartily applaud those of its representatives for thus incurring the contempt of dissipated diplomats. Some persons maintain that Stanton breaks down, perhaps that he suffers, physically as well as mentally, from his necessitated contact with his official colleagues and his and their persistent, inevitable and inexorable hangers-on and supplicants. I do not perceive the alleged failure of his health or powers, and I do not believe it; but assuredly, it were no marvel if such really were the case. It must be an adamantine constitution and temper that could long bear with impunity the daily contact with a Lincoln, a Seward, a Halleck, and others less noted, indeed, but not the less contagious. DECEMBER, 1862 President's Message — Political position — Fredericksburgh — Fog — Accident — Crisis in the Cabinet — Secretary Chase — Burnside — Halleck — the Butchers — The Lickspittle Republican Press — War Committee patriots — Youth — People — Ring out. Grammarians may criticize the syntax of the President's message, and the style. It reads uneasy, forced, tortuous, and it declares that it is impossible to subdue the rebels by force of arms. Of course it is impossible with Lincoln for President, and first McClellan and then Halleck to counterfeit the parts of the first Napoleon, and the at once energetic and scientific Carnot. Were the great heart of THE PEOPLE left to itself, it would be very possible and even quite easily possible. The message is written with an eye turned towards the Democrats; they are to be satisfied with the prospect of a convention. Seward puts lies into Lincoln's pen, in relation to foreign nations. But all is well, in the judgment of our Great Statesmen. Even the poor logic is, according to them, quite admirable. Contrariwise, Stanton's report corresponds to the height and the gravity of events, and is worthy alike of the writer, and of the people to whom it is addressed. Dec. 6.—Nearly four weeks the campaign has been opened; the enemy adds fortifications to fortifications before the very eyes of our army, yet nothing has been done towards preventing the rebels from working upon the formidable strongholds. Does Halleck-Burnside intend to wait until the rebels shall be thoroughly prepared to repel any attack that may be made upon them? Either there is foul play going on, or there is stupendous stupidity pervading the entire management. But no one sees it, or rather few, if any, wish to see it. Stanton, I am quite sure, has nothing to do with the special plans of this enterprise. All is planned and ruled by Lincoln, Halleck and Burnside. Dec. 7.—The political situation to-day, may be summarily stated as follows: the Republicans are confused by recent electoral defeats, and by the administrative and governmental helplessness, as exhibited every day by their leaders; the Democrats, flushed with success, display an unusual activity in evil doing, and are risking everything to preserve Slavery and the South from destruction. I speak of the Simon-pure Democrats, alias Copperheads, such as the Woods, the Seymours, the Vallandighams, the Coxes, the Biddles, &c. The Sewards and the Weeds are ready for a compromise. The masses of the people, staggered by all this bewildering turmoil and impure factiousness, are nevertheless, stubbornly determined to persevere and to succeed in saving their country. Dec. 7.—The European wiseacres, the would-be statesmen, whether in or out of power, especially in England, and that opprobrium of our century, the English and the Franco-Bonapartist press, have decided to do all that their clever brains can scheme towards preventing this noble American people from working out its mighty and beneficent destinies, and from elaborating and making more glorious than ever its own already very glorious history. As well might the brainless and heartless conspirators against human progress and human liberty endeavor to arrest the rotation of a planet by the stroke of a pickaxe. Ah! Mr. Decembriseur, with your base crew of lickspittles, your pigmy, though treacherous efforts, even contending with those of the English enemies of light, and of right, your common hatred of Freedom and Freemen will end in being the destruction of yourself. Dec. 7.—Burnside complains of the manner in which he is victimised, and explains his inactivity by the fact that the War Department neglected to furnish him with the necessary pontoons. How, in fact, was Burnside to move a great army without pontoons? But it was the duty of Halleck, and his lazy or incompetent, or traitorous staff, to have seen to the sending on of the pontoons. However, supposing Burnside and his staff to have as much wit as an average twelve-year-old school boy, they could have found in the army not merely hundreds, but even thousands of proficient workmen in a variety of mechanical trades, who would have constructed on the spot, and at the shortest notice, any number of bridges, pontoons, &c. Oh, how little are those wiseacre generals, the conceited and swaggering West Pointers; oh, how very little, if at all are they aware of the inexhaustible ingenuity and resources, the marvelous skill and power of such intelligent masses as those of which they are the unintelligent, the unsympathising and the thoroughly unblessed leaders! On a Sunday, exactly four weeks back from the day which I wrote these lines, McClellan was dismissed, and was succeeded by Burnside. But, after the established McClellan fashion, the great, great army was marched 30 to 50 miles, and then halts for weeks up to its knees in mud, and occupies itself in throwing up earthworks. And this is called making War! and the Hallecks are great men in the sight of Abraham Lincoln, and of all who profess and call themselves Lincolnites, and the rest stand around wondering and agape: Conticuere omnes intentique ora (asinina) tenebant. 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. How, unless Chase has drank of the waters of Lethe, how can he possibly look, now, in the face of, for instance, Fessenden of Maine, to whom he has said so many bitter things against the now belauded "Secretary Seward!" Bah! Chase most certainly must have a forty-or-fifty-diplomatist power of commanding—literally and not slangishly be it spoken!—his cheek, if, without burning blushes he can look in the face of Fessenden, Sumner or any honest man and say,—"I admire and I support Secretary Seward!" God! If all who, during the last two years, have come into contact with Chase, would but come forward and speak out! In that case, thousands would stand forth, a "cloud of witnesses," to confirm this statement. Chase! Faugh! I hereby brand him, and leave him to the bitter judgment of all men who can conscientiously claim to be even half honest. In merest and barest justice to Seward, greatly as I disapprove of his general course, I must here note the fact that he is by no means addicted to evil speaking about any one. Not that this reticence proceeds from scrupulous feeling or a proud stern spirit. Seward, however, never speaks evil of any one unless to destroy, and to one who sympathises in that same amiable wish. To undermine a rival or to destroy an enemy, Seward will expend any amount of slander; but, in the absence of personal interest, Seward, though officially civilian, is, by nature, far too good and too old a soldier to waste ammunition upon worthless game. Dec. 23.—Why could not Mr. Lincoln choose for his Secretary of State some man who has a holy and wholesome horror of pen, ink, and paper? Some man gifted with a sound brain, who never is quick at writing a dispatch, and would demand double salary as the price of writing one? Oh! Mr. Lincoln, had you but done this, not only would all America, but all Europe also be truly thankful for great immunity from the curse of morbid attempts at diplomacy and statesmanship. Dec. 23.—Mr. Lincoln's proclamation to the butchered army! For heaven's sake let us know, pray, pray let us know who was Lincoln's amanuensis? I hope it was not Stanton. The army is defiled. "An accident," says this precious proclamation, "has prevented victory." What accident? Let the country know the precise nature of that same accident, and the manner, time, and place of its occurrence! Burnside talks about a fog! Oh! yes, a deep, dense terribly foul fog—in the cerebellum! Is that the accident of which the precious proclamation so impudently speaks? Lincoln makes the wonderful discovery that the crossing and the recrossing of the river are quite peerless, absolutely unparallelled military achievements. Happy it was for the army, and happy for the country that at Fredericksburgh, our heroic soldiers gave far other and nobler proofs of more than human courage and fortitude than the mere crossing and recrossing of a river. The Tribune is either in its dotage, or still worse. Burnside's unsoldierly blundering is compared to the great victorious splendors of Asperm, Esslingen, Wagram, and the tyrant-crushing three days of immortal Waterloo! The Tribune lauds the crossing and the recrossing of the river, as an act of superhuman bravery; and Lincoln sympathises with the heavily wounded, and twaddles extensively about comparative losses. Comparative to what? Oh! spirits of Napoleon and his braves; oh! spirit of true history, veil your blushing brows! And the Tribune dares to make this impudent attempt at befogging the American people, and at the same time dares to tell that people that it is "intelligent." But let us not forget those comparative losses! Comparative to what? To those of the enemy?...