THE season is
excellent for military operations, such as any Napoleon could wish it. And we,
lying not on our oars or arms, but in our beds, as our spes patriæ is warmly and cosily established in a
large house, receiving there the incense and salutations of all flunkeys. Even
cabinet ministers crowd McClellan's antechambers!
The massacre at
Ball's Bluff is the work either of treason, or of stupidity, or of cowardice,
or most probably of all three united.
No European
government and no European nation would thus coolly bear it. Any commander
culpable of such stupidity would be forever disgraced, and dismissed from the
army. Here the administration, the Cabinet, and all the Scotts, the McClellans,
the Thomases, etc., strain their brains and muscles to whitewash themselves or
the culprit—to represent this massacre as something very innocent.
Victoria! Victoria!
Old Scott, Old Mischief, gone overboard! So vanished one of the two evil
genii keeping guard over Mr. Lincoln's brains. But it will not be so easy to
redress the evil done by Scott. He nailed the country's cause to such a
turnpike that any of his successors will perhaps be unable to undo what Old
Mischief has done. Scott might have had certain, even eminent, military
capacity; but, all things considered, he had it only on a small scale. Scott
never had in his hand large numbers, and hundreds of European generals of
divisions would do the same that Scott did, even in Mexico. Any one in Europe,
who in some way or other participated in the events of the last forty years,
has had occasion to see or participate in one single day in more and better
fighting, to hear more firing, and smell more powder, than has General Scott in
his whole life.
Scott's fatal
influence palsied, stiffened, and poisoned every noble or higher impulse, and
every aspiration of the people. Scott diligently sowed the first seeds of
antagonism between volunteers and regulars, and diligently nursed them. Around
his person in the War Department, and in the army, General Scott kept and
maintained officers, who, already before the inauguration, declared, and daily
asserted, that if it comes to a war, few officers of the army will unite with
the North and remain loyal to the Union.
He never forgot to
be a Virginian, and was filled with all a Virginian's conceit. To the last hour
he warded off blows aimed at Virginia. To this hour he never believed in a
serious war, and now requiescat in pace until the curse
of coming generations.
McClellan is
invested with all the powers of Scott. McClellan has more on his shoulders than
any man—a Napoleon not excepted—can stand; and with his very limited capacity
McClellan must necessarily break under it. Now McClellan will be still more
idolized. He is already a kind of dictator, as Lincoln, Seward, etc., turn
around him.
In a conversation
with Cameron, I warned him against bestowing such powers on McClellan.
"What shall we do?" was Cameron's answer; "neither the President
nor I know anything about military affairs." Well, it is true; but
McClellan is scarcely an apprentice.
Again the
intermittent fear, or fever, of foreign intervention. How absurd! Americans
belittle themselves talking and thinking about it. The European powers will
not, and cannot. That is my creed and my answer; but some of our agents,
diplomats, and statesmen, try to made capital for themselves from this fever
which they evoke to establish before the public that their skill preserves the
country from foreign intervention. Bosh!
All the good and
useful produced in the life and in the economy of nations, all the just and the
right in their institutions, all the ups and downs, misfortunes and disasters
befalling them, all this was, is, and forever will be the result of logical deductions from
pre-existing dates and facts. And here almost everybody forgets the yesterday.
A revolution imposes
obligations. A revolution makes imperative the development and the practical
application of those social principles which are its basis.
The American
Revolution of 1776 proclaimed self-government, equality before all, happiness
of all, etc.; it is therefore the peremptory duty of the American people to
uproot domestic oligarchy, based upon living on the labor of an enslaved man;
it has to put a stop to the moral, intellectual, and physical servitude of
both, of whites and of colored.
Eminent men in
America are taunted with the ambition to reach the White House. In itself it is
not condemnable; it is a noble or an ignoble ambition, according to the ways
and means used to reach that aim. It is great and stirring to see one's name
recorded in the list of Presidents of the United States; but there is still a
record far shorter, but by far more to be envied—a record venerated by our race—it
is the record of truly great men. The actually inscribed
runners for the White House do not think of this.
No one around me
here seems to understand (and no one is familiar enough with general history)
that protracted wars consolidate a nationality. Every day of Southern existence
shapes it out more and more into a nation, with all the necessary
moral and material conditions of existence.
Seeing these
repeated reviews, I cannot get rid of the idea that by such shows and
displays McClellan tries to frighten the rebels in the Chinaman fashion. The
collateral missions to England, France, and Spain, are to add force to our
cause before the public opinion as well as before the rulers. But what a
curious choice of men! It would be called even an unhappy one. Thurlow Weed,
with his offhand, apparently sincere, if not polished ways, may not be too
repulsive to English refinement, provided he does not buttonhole his
interlocutionists, or does not pat them on the shoulder. So Thurlow Weed will
be dined, wined, etc. But doubtless the London press will show him up, or some
"Secesh" in London will do it. I am sure that Lord Lyons, as it is
his paramount duty, has sent to Earl Russell a full and detailed biography of
this Seward's alter ego, sent ad latus to
Mr. Adams. Thurlow Weed will be considered an agreeable fellow; but he never
can acquire much weight and consideration, neither with the statesmen, nor with
the members of the government, nor in saloons, nor with the public at large.
Edward Everett
begged to be excused from such a false position offered to him in London. Not
fish, not flesh. It was rather an offence to proffer it to Everett. The old
patriot better knows Europe, its cabinets, and exigencies, than those who
attempted to intricate him in this ludicrous position. He is right, and he will
do more good here than he could do in London—there on a level with Thurlow
Weed!
Archbishop Hughes is
to influence Paris and France,—but whom? The public opinion, which is on our
side, is anti-Roman, and Hughes is an Ultra Montane—an opinion not over
friendly to Louis Napoleon. The French clergy in every way, in culture, wisdom,
instruction, theology, manners, deportment, etc., is superior to Hughes in
incalculable proportions, and the French clergy are already generally
anti-slavery. Hughes to act on Louis Napoleon! Why! the French Emperor can
outwit a legion of Hugheses, and do this without the slightest effort. Besides,
for more than a century European sovereigns, governments, and cabinets, have
generally given up the use of bishops, etc., for political, public, or
confidential missions. Mr. Seward stirs up old dust. All the liberal party in
Europe or France will look astonished, if not worse, at this absurdity.
All things
considered, it looks like one of Seward's personal tricks, and Seward outwitted
Chase, took him in by proffering a similar mission to Chase's friend, Bishop
McIlvaine. But I pity Dayton. He is a high-toned man, and the mission of Hughes
is a humiliation to Dayton.
Whatever may be the
objects of these missions, they look like petty expedients, unworthy a minister
of a great government.
Mason and Slidell
caught. England will roar, but here the people are satisfied. Some of the
diplomats make curious faces. Lord Lyons behaves with dignity. The small
Bremen flatter right and left, and do it like little lap-dogs.
Governor Andrew of
Massachusetts, ex-Governor Boutwell, are tip-top men—men of the people. The
Blairs are too heinous, too violent, in their persecution of Fremont. Warned M.
Blair not to protect one whom Fremont deservedly expelled. But M. Blair, in his
spite against Fremont, took a mean adventurer by the hand, and entangled
therein the President.
The vessel and the
crew are excellent, and would easily obey the hand of a helmsman, but there is
the rub, where to find him? Lincoln is a simple man of the prairie, and his
eyes penetrate not the fog, the tempest. They do not perceive the signs of the
times - cannot embrace the horizon of the nation. And thus his small
intellectual insight is dimmed by those around him. Lincoln begins now already
to believe that he is infallible; that he is ahead of the people, and frets
that the people may remain behind. Oh simplicity or conceit!
Again, Lincoln is
frightened with the success in South Carolina, as in his opinion this success
will complicate the question of slavery. He is frightened as to what he shall
do with Charleston and Augusta, provided these cities are taken.
It is disgusting to
hear with what superciliousness the different members of the Cabinet speak of
the approaching Congress—and not one of them is in any way the superior of many
congressmen.
When Congress meets,
the true national balance account will be struck. The commercial and
piratical flag of the secesh is virtually in all waters and ports. (The little
cheese-eater, the Hollander, was the first to raise a fuss against the United
States concerning the piratical flag. This is not to be forgotten.) 2d.
Prestige, to a great extent, lost. 3d. Millions upon millions wasted.
Washington besieged and blockaded, and more than 200,000 men kept in check by
an enemy not by half as strong. 4th. Every initiative which our diplomacy tried
abroad was wholly unsuccessful, and we are obliged to submit to new
international principles inaugurated at our cost; and, summing up, instead of a
broad, decided, general policy, we have vacillation, inaction, tricks, and
expedients. The people fret, and so will the Congress. Nations are as individuals;
any partial disturbance in a part of the body occasions a general chill. Nature
makes efforts to check the beginning of disease, and so do nations. In the
human organism nature does not submit willingly to the loss of health, or of a
limb, or of life. Nature struggles against death. So the people of the Union
will not submit to an amputation, and is uneasy to see how unskilfully its own
family doctors treat the national disease.
Port Royal, South
Carolina, taken. Great and general rejoicing. It is a brilliant feat of arms,
but a questionable military and war policy. Those attacks on the circumference,
or on extremities, never can become a death-blow to secesh. The rebels must be
crushed in the focus; they ought to receive a blow at the heart. This new
strategy seems to indicate that McClellan has not heart enough to attack the
fastnesses of rebeldom, but expects that something may turn up from these small
expeditions. He expects to weaken the rebels in their focus. I wish McClellan
may be right in his expectations, but I doubt it.
Officers of
McClellan's staff tell that Mr. Lincoln almost daily comes into McClellan's
library, and sits there rather unnoticed. On several occasions McClellan let
the President wait in the room, together with other common mortals.
The English
statesmen and the English press have the notion deeply rooted in their brains
that the American people fight for empire. The rebels do it, but not the free
men.
Mr. Seward's
emphatical prohibition to Mr. Adams to mention the question of slavery may have
contributed to strengthen in England the above-mentioned fallacy. This is a
blunder, which before long or short Seward will repent. It looks like
astuteness—ruse; but if so, it is the resource of a rather limited
mind. In great and minor affairs, straightforwardness is the best policy.
Loyalty always gets the better of astuteness, and the more so when the opponent
is unprepared to meet it. Tricks can be well met by tricks, but tricks are
impotent against truth and sincerity. But Mr. Seward, unhappily, has spent his
life in various political tricks, and was surrounded by men whose intimacy must
have necessarily lowered and unhealthily affected him. All his most intimates
are unintellectual mediocrities or tricksters.
Seward is free from
that infamous know-nothingism of which this Gen. Thomas is the great master (a
man every few weeks accused of treason by the public opinion, and undoubtedly
vibrating between loyalty here and sympathy with rebels).
All this must have
unavoidably vitiated Mr. Seward's better nature. In such way only can I see
plainly why so many excellent qualities are marred in him. He at times can
broadly comprehend things around him; he is good-natured when not stung, and he
is devoted to his men.
As a patriot, he is
American to the core—were only his domestic policy straight-forward and
decided, and would he only stop meddling with the plans of the campaign, and
let the War Department alone.
Since every part of
his initiative with European cabinets failed, Seward very skilfully dispatches
all the minor affairs with Europe—affairs generated by various maritime and
international complications. Were his domestic policy as correct as is now his
foreign policy, Seward would be the right man.
Statesmanship
emerges from the collision of great principles with important interests. In the
great Revolution, the thus called fathers of the nation were the offsprings of
the exigencies of the time, and they were fully up to their task. They were
vigorous and fresh; their intellect was not obstructed by any political
routine, or by tricky political praxis. Such men are now needed at the helm to carry
this noble people throughout the most terrible tempest. So in these days one
hears so much about constitutional formulas as safeguards of liberty. True
liberty is not to be virtually secured by any framework of rules and
limitations, devisable only by statecraft. The perennial existence of liberty
depends not on the action of any definite and ascertainable machinery, but on
continual accessions of fresh and vital influences. But perhaps such influences
are among the noblest, and therefore among the rarest, attributes of man.
Abroad and here,
traitors and some pedants on formulas make a noise concerning the violation of
formulas. Of course it were better if such violations had been left undone. But
all this is transient, and evoked by the direst necessity. The Constitution was
made for a healthy, normal condition of the nation; the present condition is
abnormal. Regular functions are suspended. When the human body is ruined or
devoured by a violent disease, often very tonic remedies are used—remedies
which would destroy the organism if administered when in a healthy, normal
condition. A strong organism recovers from disease, and from its treatment.
Human societies and institutions pass through a similar ordeal, and when they
are unhinged, extraordinary and abnormal ways are required to maintain the
endangered society and restore its equipoise.
Examining day after
day the map of Virginia, it strikes one that a movement with half of the army
could be made down from Mount Vernon by the two turnpike roads, and by
water to Occoquan, and from there to Brentsville. The country there seems to be
flat, and not much wooded. Manassas would be taken in the rear, and surrounded,
provided the other half of the army would push on by the direct way from here
to Manassas, and seriously attack the enemy, who thus would be broken, could
not escape. This, or any plan, the map of Virginia ought to suggest to the
staff of McClellan, were it a staff in the true meaning. Dybitsch and Toll,
young colonels in the staff of Alexander I., 1813-'14, originated the march on
Paris, so destructive to Napoleon. History bristles with evidences how with
staffs originated many plans of battles and of campaigns; history explains the
paramount influence of staffs on the conduct of a war. Of course Napoleon
wanted not a suggestive, but only an executive staff; but McClellan is not a
Napoleon, and has neither a suggestive nor an executive staff around him. A
Marcy to suggest a plan of a campaign or of a battle, to watch over its
execution!
I spoke to McDowell
about the positions of Occoquan and Brentsville. He answered that perhaps
something similar will be under consideration, and that McClellan must show his
mettle and capacity. I pity McDowell's confidence.
Besides, the
American army as it was and is educated, nursed, brought up by Gen. Scott, —the
army has no idea what are the various and complicated duties of a staff. No
school of staff at West Point; therefore the difficulty to find now genuine
officers of the staff. If McClellan ever moves this army, then the defectiveness
of his staff may occasion losses and even disasters. It will be worse with his
staff than it was at Jena with the Prussian staff, who were as conceited as the
small West Point clique here in Washington.
West Point instructs
well in special branches, but does not necessarily form generals and captains.
The great American Revolution was fought and made victorious by men not from
any military schools, and to whom were opposed commanders with as much military
science as there was possessed and current in Europe. Jackson, Taylor, and even
Scott, are not from the school.
I do not wish to
judge or disparage the pupils from West Point, but I am disgusted with the
supercilious and ridiculous behavior of the clique here, ready to form
prætorians or anything else, and poisoning around them the public opinion.
Western generals are West Point pupils, but I do not hear them make so much
fuss, and so contemptuously look down on the volunteers. These
Western generals pine not after regulars, but make use of such elements as they
have under hand. The best and most patriotic generals and
officers here, educated at West Point, are numerous. Unhappily a clique,
composed of a few fools and fops, overshadows the others.
McClellan's
speciality is engineering. It is a speciality which does not form captains and
generals for the field,— at least such instances are very rare. Of all
Napoleon's marshals and eminent commanders, Berthier alone was educated as
engineer, and his speciality and high capacity was that of a chief of the
staff. Marescott or Todleben would never claim to be captains. The intellectual
powers of an engineer are modeled, drilled, turned towards the defensive,—the
engineer's brains concentrate upon selecting defensive positions, and combine
how to strengthen them by art. So an engineer is rather disabled from embracing
a whole battle-field, with its endless casualties and space. Engineers are the
incarnation of a defensive warfare; all others, as artillerists, infantry, and
cavalry, are for dashing into the unknown—into the space; and thus these
specialities virtually represent the offensive warfare.
When will they begin
to see through McClellan, and find out that he is not the man? Perhaps too
late, and then the nation will sorely feel it.
Mr. Seward almost
idolizes McClellan. Poor homage that; but it does mischief by reason of its
influence on the public opinion.
SOURCE: Adam
Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp.
115-28
