Senator William H. Seward to Senator Charles Sumner, September 22, 1852

[Auburn, September 22, 1852.]

Your speech is an admirable, a great, a very great one. That is my opinion; and every one around me, of all sorts, confesses it.

SOURCE: Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and Letters of Charles Sumner, Vol. 3, p. 307

Diary of Adam Gurowski, January 1862

An ugly year ended in backing before England, having, at least, relative right on our side. Further, the ending year has revealed a certain incapacity in the Republican party's leaders, at least its official leaders, to administer the country and to grasp the events. If the new year shall be only the continuation of the faults, the mistakes, and the incapacities prevailing during 1861, then the worst is to be expected.

The lowest in moral degradation is an European defending slavery here or in Europe. Such Europeans are far below the condemned criminals. Still lower are such Europeans who become defenders of slavery after having visited plantations, where, in the shape of wines and delicacies, they tasted human blood, and then, hyenas-like, smacked their lips and thirsted for more.

Always the same stories, lies, and humbugs concerning the hundreds of thousands of rebels in Manassas. These lies are spread here in Washington by the numerous secessionists — at large, by such ignoble sheets as the New York Herald and Times; and McClellan seems to willingly swallow these lies, as they justify his inaction and c——.

The city is more and more crowded with Jeremy Diddlers, with lecturers, with sensation-seekers, all of them in advance discounting their hero, and showing in broad light their gigantic stupidity. One of this motley finds in McClellan a Norman chin, the other muscle, the third a brow for laurels (of thistle I hope), another a square, military, heroic frame, another firmness in lips, another an unfathomed depth in the eye, etc., etc. Never I heard in Europe such balderdash. And the ladies—not the women and gentlewomen—are worse than the men in thus stupefying themselves and those around them.

The thus called arbitrary acts of the government prove how easily, on the plea of patriotic necessity, a people, nay, the public opinion, submits to arbitrary rule. All this, servility included, explains the facility with which, in former times, concentrated and concrete despotisms have been established. Here every such arbitrary action is submitted to, because it is so new, and because the people has the childish, naïve, but, to it, honorable confidence, that the power entrusted by the people is used in the interest and for the welfare of the people. But all the despots of all times and of all nations said the same. However, in justice to Mr. Lincoln, he is pure, and has no despotical longings, but he has around him some atomistic Torquemadas.

It will be very difficult to the coming generations to believe that a people, a generation, who for half a century was outrunning the time, who applied the steam and the electro-magnetic telegraph, that the same people, when overrun by a terrible crisis, moved slowly, waited patiently, and suffered from the mismanagement of its leaders. This is to be exclusively explained by the youthful self-consciousness of an internal, inexhaustible vital force, and by the child-like inexperience.

The Congress, that is, the majority, shows that it is aware of the urgency of the case, and of the dangerous position of the country. But still the best in Congress are chained, hampered by the formulas.

The good men in both the houses seem to be firmly decided not to quietly stand by and assist in the murder of the nation by the administrative and military incapacity. This was to be expected from such men as Wade, Grimes, Chandler, Hale, Wilson, Sumner (too classical), and other Republicans in the Senate, and from the numerous pure, radical Republicans in the House.

Burnside's expedition is a sign of life. But all these expeditions on the circumference, even if successful, will be fruitless if no bold, decided movement is at once made at the centre, at the heart of the rebellion. But McClellan, as his supporters say, matures his strategical plans. O God! General Scott lost by strategy three-fourths of the country's cause, and very probably by strategy McClellan will jeopardize what remains of it.

Will this McClellan ever advance? If he lingers, he may find only rats in Manassas. McClellan is ignorant of the great, unique rule for all affairs and undertakings,—it is to throw the whole man in one thing at one time. It is the same in the camp as in the study, for a captain as for a lawyer, the savant, and the scholar.

It is to be regretted that some of the men truly and thoroughly devoted to the cause of freedom and of humanity, mix with it such an enormous quantity of personal, almost childish vanity, as to puzzle many minds concerning the genuine nobleness of their devotion. It is to be regretted that those otherwise so self-sacrificing patriots discount even their martyrdom and persecutions, and credit them to their frivolous self-satisfaction.

Most of the thus-called well-informed Americans rather skim over than thoroughly study history. Above all, it applies to the general history of the Christian era, and of our great epoch (from the second half of the 18th century). Most of the Americans are only very superficially familiar with the history of continental Europe, or know it only by its contact with the history of England. Many of them are more familiar with the classical wars of Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, etc., than with those of Gustavus, Frederick II., and even of Napoleon. Were it otherwise, strategy would not to such an extent have taken hold of their brains.

Mr. Adams was terribly unhorsed during the Trent excitement in England; he literally began to pack up his trunks, and asked a personal advice from Lord John Russell.

What a devoted patriot this Sandford in Belgium is; he has continual itchings in his hand to pay a higher price for bad blankets that they may not fall into the hands of secesh agents; so with cloth, so perhaps with arms. Oh, disinterested patriot!

Austria and Prussia whipped in by England and France, and at the same time glad to have an occasion to take the airs of maritime powers. Austria and Prussia sent their advice concerning the Trent affair. The kick of asses at what they suppose to be the dying lion.

Austria and Prussia! Great heavens! Ask the prisons of both those champions of violated rights how many better men than Slidell and Mason groaned in them; and the conduct of those powers against the Poles in 1831! Was it neutral or honest?

I am sure that Russia will behave well, and abstain from coming forward with uncalled-for and humiliating advice. Russia is a true great power, — a true friend, — and such noble behavior will be in harmony with the character of Alexander II., and with the friendliness and clear perception of events held by the Russian minister here. I hope that when the war is over the West Point nursery will be reformed, and a general military organization introduced, such a one as exists in Switzerland.

McClellan is a greater mistake than was even Scott. McClellan knows not the ABC of military history of any nation or war, or he would not keep this army so in camp. He would know that after recruits have been roughly instructed in the rudiments of a drill, the next best instructor is fighting. So it was in the thirty years' war; so in the American Revolution; so in the first French revolutionary wars. Strategians, martinets, lost the battles, or rather the campaigns, of Austerlitz, of Jena, etc. In 1813 German rough levies fought almost before they were drilled, and at Bautzen French recruits were victorious over Prussians, Russians, and Austrians. The secesh fight with fresh levies, etc.

Numerous political intriguers surrounding McClellan are busily laying tracks for him to the White House. What will Seward and Chase say to it, and even old Abe, who himself dreams of re-election, or at least his friends do it for him? All these candidates forget that the surest manner to reach the White House is not to think of it—to forget oneself and to act.

It is amusing to find in European papers all the various stories about Mr. Lincoln. There he is represented as a violent, blood-thirsty revolutionaire, dragging the people after him. In this manner, those European imbeciles are acquainted with American events, character, etc. They cannot find out that in decision, in clear-sightedness and soundness of judgment, the people are far ahead of Mr. Lincoln and of his spiritual or constitutional conscience-keepers.

And the same imbeciles, if not canailes, speak of a mob-rule over the President, etc. Some one ought to enlighten those French and English supercilious ignorami that something like a mob only prevails in such cities as New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore; and nine-tenths of such a mob are mostly yet unwashed, unrepublicanized Europeans. The ninety-nine one-hundredths of the freemen of the North are more orderly, more enlightened, more lawabiding, and more moral than are the English lordlings, somebodies, nobodies, and would-be somebodies. In the West, lynch-law, to be sure, is at times used against brothels, bar-rooms, gambling-houses, and thieves. It would be well to do the same in London, were it not that most of the lynch-lawed may not belong to the people. If the European scribblers were not past any honest impulse, they would know that the South is the generator and the congenial region for the mob, the fillibusters, the revolver and the bowie-knife rule. In the South the proportion of mobs to decency is the reverse of that prevailing in the free States. The slavery gentleman is a scarcely varnished savage, for whom the highest law is his reckless passion and will.

If Jeff. Davis succeeds, he will be the founder of a new and great slaveholding empire. His name will resound in after times; but history will record his name as that of a curse to humanity.

And so Davis is making history and Lincoln is telling stories. Beauregard gets inspired by the fumes of bivouacs; McClellan by the fumes of flatterers. Beauregard frightens us, McClellan rocks his baby. Beauregard shares the camp-fires of his soldiers; he sees them daily, knows them, as it is said, one by one; McClellan lives comfortably in the city, and appears only to the soldiers as the great Lama on special occasions. Camp-fellowship inspired all the great captains and established the magnetic current between the leader and the soldier.

McClellan organized a board of generals, arriving daily from the camps, to discuss some new fancy army equipment. And Lincoln, Seward, Blair, and all the tail of intriguers and imbeciles, still admire him. In no other country would such a futile man be kept in command of troops opposed to a deadly and skilful enemy.

For several weeks, McClellan and his chief of the staff (such as he is) are sick in bed, and no one is ad interim appointed to attend to the current affairs of our army of 600,000, having the enemy before their nose. Oh human imbecility! No satirist could invent such things; and if told, it would not be believed in Europe.

The McClellan-worship by the people at large is to be explained by the firm, ardent will of the people to crush the rebels, and by the general feeling of the necessity of a man for that purpose. Such is the case with the true, confiding people in the country; but here, contractors, martinets, and intriguers are the blowers of that worship. Lincoln is as is the people at large; but a Seward, a Blair, a Herald, a Times, and their respective and numerous tails, as for their motives, they are the reverse of Lincoln and of the people.

Victories in Kentucky, beyond the circumference or the direct action from here; they are obtained without strategy and by rough levies. But this voice of events is not understood by the McClellan tross.

Change in the Cabinet: Stanton, a new man, not from the parlor, and not from the hacks. His bulletin on the victory in Kentucky inaugurated a new era. It is a voice that nobody hitherto uttered in America. It is the awakening voice of the good genius of the people, almost as that which awoke Lazarus. This Stanton is the people; I never saw him, but I hope he is the man for the events; perhaps he may turn out to be my statesman.

I wish I could get convinced of the real superiority of Fremont. It is true that he was treated badly and had natural and artificial difficulties to over come; it is true that to him belongs the credit of having started the construction of the mortar fleet; but likewise it is true that he was, at the mildest, unsurpassingly reckless in contracts and expenditures, and I shall never believe him a general. With all this, Fremont started a great initiative at a time when McClellan and three-fourths of the generals of his creation considered it a greater crime to strike at a gentleman slaveholder than to strike at the Union.

The courtesies and hospitalities paid to Thurlow Weed by English society are clamored here in various ways. These courtesies prove the high breeding and the good-will of a part, at least, of the English aristocracy and of English statesmen. I do not suppose that Thurlow Weed could ever have been admitted in such society if he were travelling on his own merits as the great lobbyist and politician. At the utmost, he would have been shown up as a rara avis. But introduced to English society as the master spirit of Mr. Seward, and as Seward's semi-official confidential agent, Thurlow Weed was admitted, and even petted. But it is another question if this palming of a Thurlow Weed upon the English high-toned statesmen increased their consideration for Mr. Seward. Duke of Newcastle and others are not yet softened, and refuse to be humbugged.

Whoever has the slightest knowledge of how affairs are transacted, is well aware that the times of a personal diplomacy are almost gone. The exceptions are very rare, very few, and the persons must be of other might and intellectual mettle than a Sandford, Weed, or Hughes. Great affairs are not conducted or decided by conversations, but by great interests. Diplomatic agents, at the utmost, serve to keep their respective governments informed about the run of events. Mr. Mercier does it for Louis Napoleon; but Mr. Mercier's reports, however friendly they may be, cannot much influence a man of such depth as Louis Napoleon, and to imagine that a Hughes will be able to do it! I am ashamed of Mr. Seward; he proves by this would-be-crotchety policy how little he knows of events and of men, and how he undervalues Louis Napoleon. Such humbug missions are good to throw dirt in the eyes of a Lincoln, a Chase, etc., but in Europe such things are sent to Coventry. And Hughes to influence Spain! Oh! oh!

Dayton frets on account of the mission of Hughes. Dayton is right. Generally Dayton shows a great deal of good sense, of good comprehension, and a noble and independent character. He is not a flatterer, not servile, and subservient to Mr. Seward, as are others Mr. Adams, Mr. Sandford, and some few other diplomatic agents.

The active and acting abolitionists ought to concentrate all their efforts to organize thoroughly and efficiently the district of Beaufort. The success of a productive colony there would serve as a womb for the emancipation at large.

Mr. Seward declares that he has given up meddling with military affairs. For his own sake, and for the sake of the country, I ardently wish it were so; but I shall never believe it.

The Investigating Committee has made the most thorough disclosures of the thorough incapacity of McClellan; but the McClellan men, Seward, Blair, etc., neutralize, stifle all the good which could accrue to the country from these disclosures. And Lincoln is in their clutches. The administration by its influence prevents the publication of the results of this investigation, prevents the truth from coming to the people. Any hard name will be too soft for such a moral prevarication.

McClellan is either as feeble as a reed, or a bad man.

The disorder around here is nameless. Banks compares it to the time of the French Directory. Banks has no guns, no cavalry, and is in the vanguard. He begs almost on his knees, and cannot get anything. And the country pays a chief of the staff, and head of the staffers.

The time must come, although it be now seemingly distant, that the people will awake from this lethargy; that it will perceive how much of the noblest blood of the people, how much time and money, have been worse than recklessly squandered. The people will find it out, and then they will ask those Cains at the wheel an account of the innocent blood of Abel, the country's son, the country's cause.

The defenders of, and the thus called moderate men on the question of slavery, utter about it the old rubbish composed of the most thorough ignorance and of disgusting fallacies, in relation to this pseudo science, or rather lie, about races. More of it will come out in the course of the Congressional discussions. Not one of them is aware that independent science, that comparative anatomy, physiology, psychology, anthropology, that philosophy of history altogether and thoroughly repudiate all these superficially asserted, or tried-to-be-established, intrinsic diversities and peculiarities of races. All these would-be axioms, theories, are based on sand. In true science the question of race as represented by the Southern school partisans of slavery, with Agassiz, the so-called professor of Charleston by European savans, at their head, — that question is at the best an illusive element, and endangers the accuracy of induction. As it presents itself to the unprejudiced investigator, race is nothing more than the single manifestation of anterior stages of existence, the aggregate expression of the pre-historic vicissitudes of a people.

If those would-be knowing arguers on slavery, race, etc., were only aware of the fact that such people as the primitive Greeks, or the ancestors of classical Greeks, that the ancestors of the Latins, that even the roving, robbing ancestors of the Anglo Saxons, in some way or other, have been anthropophagi, and worshipped fetishes; and even as thus called already civilized, they sacrificed men to gods, could our great pro-slavers know all this, they would be more decent in their ignorant assertions, and not, so self-satisfied, strut about in their dark ignorance.

Those who are afraid that the freed negroes of the South will run to the Northern free States, display an ignorance still greater than the former. When the enslaved colored Americans in the South shall be all thoroughly emancipated in that now cursed region, then they will remain in the, to them, congenial climate, and in the favorable economical conditions of labor and of existence: Not only those emancipated will not run North, but the colored population from the free States, incited and stirred up by natural attractions, will leave the North for the South, as small streamlets and rivulets run into a large current or river.

The rebels extend on an immense bow, nearly one hundred miles, from the lower to the upper Potomac. Our army, two to one, is on the span of the arc, and we do nothing. A French sergeant would be better inspired than is McClellan.

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 137-50

Diary of Gideon Welles, Tuesday, August 7, 1866

The President submitted two long telegrams, one from himself to General Sheridan inquiring as to the difficulties at New Orleans and Sheridan's reply, which was no answer.

Seward and Stanbery had much to say. The latter was very earnest to have the President send immediately to Sheridan, telling him the police must be dismissed. There was, he said, great excitement in the country and the President must at once respond.

I inquired to what he was to respond. On Friday he had directed Sheridan to keep the peace and pursue his investigations. Since that inquiries had been made which had procured a feeble and confused response, concluding with a request or suggestion that the Governor of the State and the Mayor of New Orleans be displaced. Sheridan might be told that the President had no authority to displace these officers; but I expressed a hope that he would not at this distance undertake to give detailed instructions to his generals or agents.

I asked who General Baird was that he should be charged with this responsibility, and how it came about that such a man as was now described happened to be at such a place at this juncture. As for Sheridan, I considered him an honest, bold, impulsive officer, without much knowledge of civil government or administrative ability, who obeyed orders, but I apprehended him badly prompted after his first telegram, and regretted that we had not men of different calibre there at this time.

Seward said my estimate of Sheridan he thought correct. As for Baird, he knew nothing of him. The President expressed dissatisfaction with what he heard of Baird. Stanton kept silent.

Stanbery was persistent that the President should instruct Sheridan in regard to the police of the city.

Stanton said application had been made to him for bunting for the building at Philadelphia where the convention was to meet, but he had none for them, and said, with a sneer, he would turn them over to the Navy. I told him that my bunting had always been promptly shown and it would be well were he now to let us have a sight of his.

Stanton, who has skulked, was taken aback, colored, and remarked he had no bunting for them. "Oh," said I, "show your flag."

"You mean the convention," said he. "I am against it." "I am sorry to hear, but glad to know, your opinion," said I.

"Yes, I am opposed to the convention," he continued. "I didn't know it. You did not answer the inquiry like the rest of us."

"No," said he; "I did not choose to have Doolittle or any other little fellow draw an answer from me."

The conversation amused the others, as it did me. Seward looked troubled. Whether he knew Stanton's position, I am in doubt. It is, I am satisfied, very recent that he has concluded to avow himself, although I have never doubted that he was as much opposed as any Radical to the Union movement. I think he would rather have the Government overthrown than that the real Unionists should come in power. He seems to have personal apprehensions.

I called on the President this evening to advise caution in his communications with New Orleans. Expressed my regret that he had not better officers for the business required at this time in that quarter. He concurred with me and said Baird, so far as he could learn, had caused the trouble or might have prevented it.

"Who," inquired I, "placed Baird there? Was it not part of the Radical scheme to bring this difficulty upon us? It certainly is unfortunate that we have these men there." He said he believed Baird was attached to the Freedmen's Bureau. I said this might have been ordered otherwise and should have been; that the Administration could not get along intelligently and well without faithful and reliable agents. I inquired if he noticed the remarks of Stanton to-day respecting the convention, "though probably you knew his opinions previously." The President said he had not known them before, that it was the first intimation he had received, and he noticed the remark. "This is wrong," said I; "we cannot get along in this way." "No," replied he, "it will be pretty difficult."

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 572-4

Diary of Gideon Welles, Friday, August 10, 1866

Seward was not at Cabinet, having had a sudden call to Auburn. It was a dodge to avoid an open committal with the Philadelphia Convention. Attorney-General Stanbery had charge of his portfolio, Assistant Secretary Fred Seward being also absent. There was a little meaning in this. Whether Stanton was a party to it in order to avoid being in any way committed, or is slighted, I know not. If the last, I think it was unintentional, but Seward is paying hard court to Stanbery. I perceive it every day.

A dispatch from Vice-Consul-General Savage at Cuba in relation to the steamers Harriet Lane and Pelican was read, with Seward's reply. I thought Seward conceded too much and so stated. The threat from some person who is in charge, that he would sell them if not paid his charges, is simply ridiculous. Any proper charges the Government would pay ere this, as on any other government vessel, but the idea of an individual selling a public ship is absurd. Still Seward concedes it.

Queen Emma of the Sandwich Islands is to visit Washington as the guest of the Government on invitation of Secretary Seward, who is conveniently absent. As Stanbery is delegated by Seward in other matters, Stanton thought he should do the honors to the young dowager.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 575-6

Diary of Gideon Welles, Tuesday, August 14, 1866

Seward has run off to Auburn and left Stanbery to attend upon the Hawaiian dowager, Queen Emma. He finds it awkward and embarrassing, but does very well. The President expressed a wish that the Cabinet, and such of their families as could, might be at the reception this evening. McCulloch and myself were the only ones present except Stanbery, who escorted her. She is a good-looking, well-developed woman of about thirty, with a complexion a shade darker perhaps than a brunette, a full, round eye, a good form, of graceful deportment, etc.

We hear that the convention at Philadelphia is full and harmonious and all is progressing satisfactorily. The effect must be salutary on the whole country and will, I trust, contribute to overcome that intense sectional hate and party rancor which it is the aim and purpose of the Radicals to inculcate towards the South. These Radical leaders, and to a great extent their followers, are vindictive and have apparently no wish or intention to reëstablish the Union or recognize the political equality of the States.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 577-8

Diary of Edward Bates, July 5, 1859

. . . For some days past, my sister¹⁸ has been in a very precarious condition — not sick with any painful disease, but being frequently taken with a difficulty of breathing, as if the lungs were too weak to clear the throat. I think it is but the weakness of old age, the natural decay of the organs. I should not wonder at her going off any hour.

As to me, I feel, tho' in perfect bodily health, an indolence and indecision not common with me. The cause, I fear, is the mixing up of my name in Politics. I am suffering a serious injury, professionally and perhaps, socially, by the many suggestions, in various parts of the country, to take me up as the Opposition candidate for the Presidency. The idea is presented in so many ways and sometimes in a shape so plausible, as to force itself upon my attention and withdraw my thoughts from other topics more practical and more necessary to my interests. A large section of the Republican party, who think that Mr. Seward's nomination would ensure defeat, are anxious to take me up, thinking that I could carry the Whigs and Americans generally, and thus ensure the Northern States and have a strong party in the border slave states, consisting of Whigs and Americans. I must try to resist the temptation, and not allow my thoughts to be drawn off from the common channels of business and domestic cares. Ambition is a passion, at once strong and insidious, and is very apt to cheet [sic] a man out of his happiness and his true respectability of character.

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¹⁸ Sarah Bates. Supra, May 8, 1859, note 47.

SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 29-30

Diary of Edward Bates, July 27, 1859

A bright day, pleasantly cool — On going in to the office [I] found on my desk, the card of Wm. G Bates⁴⁸ of Massts. — He called to see me (with Capt: Bissell) telling Dick that he was a couzen [sic] of my old friend I. C. Bates⁴⁹ of Northampton, and that he wished to see me, partly on that account, and partly for my politics [.]

. . .

Colfax. Recd, a letter today, from Mr. Colfax⁵⁰ who expresses himself much pleased with my long letter, amended in its phraseology in some particulars, as suggested by him; and he asks leave to shew the letter to Mr. C. A Dana ⁵¹ of the Tribune. Of course, I have no objection; my letter, tho' not written for publication, is not secret.

He also encloses, for my inspection, a letter from Mr. Dana to him, by which I find that D.[ana] prefers Chase⁵² to Seward — (but does not want either) as a candidate for the Presidency — and enquires, with apparent interest, about the present condition of "the Bates movement." Dana says — "If B.[ates] can be put forward as a representative of the emancipation cause in Missouri he will be the strongest candidate we can have. With any other man we shall have the Fillmore split over again [.] "

<Note this letter from D.[ana] to C.[olfax] is dated July 10[.] > About the same time Colfax wrote to Gibson,⁵³ and sent him, among other things, a letter from Mr. Bowles,⁵⁴ editor of the Springfield Republican (Massts.) to him, C[olfax]. [          ] Bowles, I believe, is in full concert with the Tribune of N. York, and Colfax, Defrese ⁵⁵ and other party leaders in the North West, to bring me out as the candidate of the Republicans. They are all afraid of Seward — they have personal objections doubtless, but their main ground is their full conviction that with Mr. S.[eward] for their candidate defeat, is inevitable.⁵⁶ And they seem to think, that if S.[eward] is not nominated, his friends will take care that neither Bankes⁵⁷ nor Chase, nor any other Republican shall be. In that event, they think me the most available candidate — the only man in fact, who, getting the Republican vote, can also secure the general support of the Americans and Whigs. Some of them tell me that Mr. Weed⁵⁸ (who is understood to be Mr. Seward's " master of the horse " in N. Y.) goes for me, second.

Mr. Bowles says in his letter, that my N.[ew] Y.[ork] letter⁵⁹ "ought not to have been written." As a measure of policy, I differ from him widely.

1. It is satisfactory to the real economists every where[.]

2. It pleases the manufacturers, who need protection, especially in Pa.

3. It is agreeable to all the old whigs.

4. It is not offensive to the Americans at the South, very pleasing to those of the North.

5. It is rank poison to the proslavists of the South, and by resisting their propagandism — and hence, conciliatory to all their enemies.

6. The objection of Mr. Bowles, and other leading Republicans to my denunciation of slavery agitation, is, in my judgment, a positive advantage.

1. It keeps me separated from the Republican party, and yet not so far removed as to prevent their support: 2d. It allays the prejudices of Whigs and Americans farther south, who might not be willing to support any man who was fully identified with the Republican party. 3. It gives to the whole letter an air of courage and sincerity which may tend to beget a general feeling favorable to the writer, and especially among the multitude who are now disgusted with the frauds and mismanagement of all the parties [.]

["The Presidency in I860."⁶⁰

 

"In this week's issue we run up the name of Hon. Edward Bates, of Missouri, for President in 1860; subject to the decision of the Union Convention.

 

"It is useless for us to eulogise Edward Bates ; he is too well and favorably known to the whole nation, for us to attempt to add anything to the lustre of his character. He is the man to lead on to victory the columns of the mighty 'Union Party,' that is daily gathering strength all over the country. With him at our head, we can break up, and disband the two pernicious and sectional parties, the Democratic and the Republican, whose strife and wrangling over mere abstractions, have brought us several times upon the very verge of civil war.

 

"Edward Bates, is an eminently conservative man, and if elevated to the high position of Chief Magistrate of the Nation, will administer the government upon those truly national principles which actuated the earlier Presidents.

 

"Should Edward Bates be nominated, we feel assured that the Union men of Missouri will exert themselves to secure his election, as patriots should do when their country is in danger."]

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⁴⁸ A lawyer of Westfield, Massachusetts; Whig state senator, 1841; member of Governor Briggs's Council, 1844-1845.

⁴⁹ Isaac C. Bates: anti-Jackson Democratic congressman, 1827-1835 ; Whig U. S. senator from Massachusetts from 1841 until his death in 1845.

⁵⁰ Supra, April 27, 1S59, note 28.

⁵¹ Charles A. Dana: assistant to Greeley on the New York Tribune, 1847-1862; special commissioner of the War Department, 1862-1863; assistant secretary of War, 1863-1865; later, editor of the New York Sun. He was an ardent war-time supporter of Lincoln, then a bitter enemy of Johnsonian restoration, but finally a Liberal Republican seeking reform of Grantisms. In 1859 he was still in complete sympathy with Greeley.

⁵² Infra, March 5, 1861, note 27. Chase, a perennial aspirant to the Presidency was really in 1859 a leading candidate for the Republican nomination, but lost it. partly because his own state was not united in his support and partly because he. like Seward, was too extreme on slavery to win moderate votes.

⁵³ Supra, April 27, 1859, note 27.

⁵⁴ Samuel Bowles — anti-slavery leader, strong supporter of Lincoln against the Radical Republicans, advocate of moderation toward the South — made his Springfield Republican one of the most powerful influences in the North.

⁵⁵ John D. Defrees of Indiana: lawyer and state legislator ; first chairman of the Indiana Republican State Committee, 1856-1860 ; editor of the Indianapolis State Journal. He must, in the end, have supported Lincoln's candidacy, for Lincoln appointed him government printer in 1861.

⁵⁶ See supra, April 27, 1859, note 30.

⁵⁷ Nathaniel P. Banks of Massachusetts: Democratic congressman, 1853-1855; American Party congressman and speaker of the House, 1855-1857; Republican congressman, 1857, 1865-1873, 1875-1879, 1889-1891 ; governor of Massachusetts, 1858-1861 ; president of the Illinois Central Railroad, 1861; major-general of volunteers, who served in Maryland, in the Shenandoah, at Vicksburg, in Louisiana, and in Texas, 1861-1865. As a former Know-Nothing, he was more "available " in 1860 than Seward whom the Know-Nothings hated.

⁵⁸ Thurlow Weed: editor of the Albany Evening Journal; for years the most powerful political figure in New York politics; one of the early managers of the National Republican Party. At this time he was managing Seward's campaign for the Republican nomination.

⁵⁹ See supra, 1-9.

⁶⁰ A clipping from the Louisiana (Missouri) Journal of July 25, 1859.

SOURCE: Howard K. Beale, Editor, Annual Report of The American Historical Association For The Year 1930, Vol. 4, The Diary Of Edward Bates, pp. 36-8

Diary of Henry Greville, Thursday, March 13, 1862

On Monday night there was a debate in the House of Lords on the American blockade, when Lord John Russell declined to give the papers moved for, and said that 'the policy pursued by our Government had been dictated not by expediency, but by justice, and that both sides at some future period would acknowledge this fact, and he trusted that within three months, if not sooner, we might see the end of the war, and he hoped that it might terminate in a manner consistent with the welfare and happiness of both parties, and a renewal of the old good feeling between North and South, and that they would consent to a peaceful separation into two States which might be powerful and prosperous.' I don't think this prophecy on the part of John Russell was judicious, however likely it may be of accomplishment, and I see no probability of it. It is, however, remarkable that by the advices from New York the same expectation exists of the approaching end of the war, and Mr. Seward gives exactly the same opinion of its duration as John Russell did (ninety days), though by no means with the same result. Edward Ellice, whom I met at Flahault's on Monday, said he was convinced that whether the war went on or not, the Federal Union was doomed. Mr. Adams, the American Minister, told Flahault that the war would be over by the month of June, but with what result he did not specify.

SOURCE: Alice Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville: 1861-1872, pp. 28-9

Diary of 2nd Lieutenant John S. Morgan, Sunday, April 23, 1865

Inspection at 9. A. M. Lt Hook comes to the Regt with the sad intiligence of the Assassination of President Lincoln & Sec Seward which is published in the Mobile paper. The news quickly spreads & groups of men can be seen all arond talking in low tones with a look of sadness never worn by them before, at 10, a. m the Div Brass Band plays the "dead march" & is followed by the bands of Regts in order. It is truly a solemn day & the boys one & all vow to take vengance in Southern blood, many who favored peace this morning now favor utter extermination; about noon we are greeted with the arrival of Luit Sharman looking like altogether a different man from the Luit Sharman we left at Little Rock the 14 of Feb he brings an extra which states that it is thought Seward is not mortally wounded & hopes of his recovery is enertained, he spent the night last night with Capt Lacy & reports that Genl Steeles Corps proceeded up the Alabama river this morning, embarked on 15 transports escorted by a fleet of gun boats, says a very fine Gulf steamer was blown up in the channel in the Bay by a torpedo of which there remain some yet. Luit Seevers s detailed to proceed to New Orleans to bring up our Books & Records. Weather cool.

SOURCE: “Diary of John S. Morgan, Company G, Thirty-Third Iowa Infantry,” Annals of Iowa, Vol. XIII, No. 8, Third Series, Des Moines, April 1923, pp. 594-5

Alfred Hyde to Abraham Lincoln, March 25, 1858

Alton Mch 25th/58

Abram Lincoln

Springfield

Dear Sir allow me to call your attention back to the 4th of last March & also to the conversation that took place between Your Honor & myself, then a prisoner on the cars from Chicago, for being concerned in the American Exchenge Bank of Georgetown D. C. I write this to you with refferance to engageing you to obtain a pardon for me I was sentenced for 4 years, But I did not have a fair trial nor was I allowed time to get my witnesses, I was indited for haveing ficticious Money, But it was not such thare was such a Bank; & no one ever lost a dollar by it. The Mayor of the City of Georgetown D. C. will satisfy you as to that (the then Mayor)/56

further I had nothing to do with the concern, & more I am not a Villian nor a rascall, have always been in Mercantile buisiness & will refur you to Hon D. S. Dickinson, of Binghamton Judson Smith Esq same place Wm Ross Wallace N. York City Ex Governrr Wm Wood of Cleveland Ohio, & Wm H Seward — for as to my pased life for 10 years— In Chicago to Hanson Abbot G. W. Gage Jencks & Beers & Capt. A. Pellittere, I am here innocent. Now what will you ask to obtain a pardon for me, cash upon my freedom, & it put in Bank before subject to my Pardon, Wm Rutherford & S A. Buckmaster I am told will give me a fair Bill of conduct since here 13 months, James C Brayman has advised me to write you, he works beside me— My Brother Alvin of Brookfield Mass will pay the fee that we may agree upon.—

I write this & send it (Sub Rosa) & you I hope will be so kind as answer it at once & let me know your views & then I will get permission to write you in full — you will need only to go to Chicago once & send here to Mr Rutherford Agent— I am anxious to be out as I am loosing money & time. You can write me without saying you received this letter by evading it & say you have heard from me, Pleas write me at once & I will answer fully & be much obliged to you — while I remain here yours

Most Gratefully

Alfred. Hyde

To Hon A Lincoln

Springfield Ill

Please direct care of Mr S A Buckmaster

SOURCE: Lincoln, Abraham. Abraham Lincoln papers: Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833 to 1916: Alfred Hyde to Abraham Lincoln, Thursday,Legal. 1858. Manuscript/Mixed Material. https://www.loc.gov/item/mal0074200/.

Diary of George Templeton Strong, September 14, 1860

Went with George Anthon and Walter Cutting to the opera. Heard three acts of Martha in the Cutting box. Patti and Brignoli did fairly. House full, but strangers mostly. Music is pretty, but not very strong.

Last night’s Republican turnout is the town talk. Everyone speaks of the good order and the earnest aspect of the “Wide-Awakes,” and likens this to the “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” gatherings of 1840. Certainly, all the vigor and enthusiasm of this campaign are thus far confined to the Republicans. Their adversaries are disorganized, divided, and discouraged. In this state, there is a fusion (worse confounded) of the Union Party (Bell and Everett) with the Squatter Sovereignty Democrats (Douglas and Johnson), and a sort of feebly coherent composite electoral ticket. . . . They are trying to coalesce with the Breckinridge people so as to include in one ticket all the anti-Lincoln elements. But that seems as yet beyond the powers of political synthesis.

So we have three parties in this state, videlicet:

1. “Honest Abe” Lincoln’s party.

2. The Fusionists, whose ticket is twenty-five Douglas and Johnson, and ten Bell and Everett, and who are engineered by Washington Hunt and the New York Express and patronized as well-meaning people, but soon to fail, by die New York Herald.

3. Breckinridge and Lane’s party, consisting mainly of federal office-holders.

4. No. 4, "Sham” Houston’s party, has dissolved, that hero having magnanimously withdrawn.

I don’t know clearly on which side to count myself in. I’ve a leaning toward the Republicans. But I shall be sorry to see Seward and Thurlow Weed with their tail of profligate lobby men promoted from Albany to Washington. I do not like the tone of the Republican papers and party in regard to the John Brown business of last fall, and I do not think rail-splitting in early life a guarantee of fitness for the presidency.

I could vote for Bell and Mr. Orator Everett. But I can’t support them in their partnership with Douglas, the little giant, for I hold the little giant to be a mere demagogue. As to Breckinridge, the ultra Southern candidate, I renounce and abhor him and his party. He represents the most cruel, blind, unreasoning, cowardly, absolute despotism that now disgraces the earth, Garibaldi having probably squelched poor little Neapolitan Bomba before this date. Freedom of speech and of thought is extinct south of the Potomac. Life and property are as insecure there as in Paris in 1793 or in the Kingdom of Dahomey. Witness the atrocities daily perpetrated, for example, in Texas, where white men are being hanged and niggers burned by terrified Vigilance Committees, self-appointed and irresponsible, on the strength of legends about “one hundred bottles of strychnine” to be used by some nigger toxicologist to “poison the wells” of a whole county. These grisly antics of insane Southern mobs and the idiotic sanguinary babblings of Southern editors and orators tempt me to become a disunion man. Alliance with com-munities so lawless—more than semi-barbarous—seems degrading to the comparatively civilized North.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 41-2

Diary of George Templeton Strong, November 2, 1860

Sent Ellie to the opera in charge of her brother Jem and sallied out for a debilitated stroll. Found a great Wide-Awake demonstration in progress; inspected them in Fourteenth Street. Seward was making a speech in “Palace Gardens,’’ and the crowd there was dense, the Gardens packed full and impenetrable. The show in the street was brilliant—rockets, Roman candles with many colored fire balls, Bengal lights, the Wide-Awakes with their lanterns and torches, and “I wish I was in Dixie.” I adjourned to Broadway in front of the New York Hotel to see the procession pass. The Southerners of the hotel groaned and hissed, and the Republican mob in and about the Lincoln and Hamlin headquarters across the street cheered and roared, and the din was deafening. But there was no breach of peace. . . .

Think I will vote the Republican ticket next Tuesday. One vote is insignificant, but I want to be able to remember that I voted right at this grave crisis. The North must assert its rights, now, and take the consequences.

Think of James J. Roosevelt, United States District Attorney, bringing up certain persons under indictment for piracy as slave-traders to be arraigned the other day, and talking to the Court about the plea the defendants should put in, and saying that “there had been a great change in public sentiment about the slave trade,” and that “of course the President would pardon the defendants if they were capitally convicted.”!!! Is Judge Roosevelt more deficient in common sense or in moral sense? If we accede to Southern exactions, we must re-open the slave trade with all its horrors, establish a Slave Code for the territories, and acquiesce in a decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Lemmon case that will entitle every Southerner to bring his slaves into New York and Massachusetts and keep them there. We must confess that our federal government exists chiefly for the sake of nigger-owners. I can’t do that. Rather let South Carolina and Georgia secede. We will coerce and punish the traitorous seceders if we can; but if we can’t, we are well rid of them.

If I looked remarkably like Kossuth or Mazzini, I could nevertheless travel through Austria with no danger beyond that of a few days' detention, at the end of which, my identity being proven, I should be dismissed with apologies and an indemnity. But I happen to be mistaken for John Jay at least once a week, and it would therefore be utter madness for me to visit that section of our free and happy republic that lies south of Mason and Dixon’s line. Before I had traveled half a day’s journey through that sunny and chivalric region, some gent who had visited New York would spot me as a damned abolitionist emissary. I should be haled forth from my railroad car and hanged on the nearest palmetto tree.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 56-7

Diary of Adam Gurowski, December 1861

MCCLELLAN is now all-powerful, and refuses to divide the army into corps. Thus much for his brains and for his consistency.

The message — a disquisition upon labor and capital; hesitancy about slavery. The President wishes to be pushed on by public opinion. But public opinion is safe, and expects from the official leader a decided step onwards. The message gives no solution, suggests none, accounts not for the lost time — foreshadows not a vigorous, energetic effort to crush the rebellion; foreshadows not a vigorous, offensive war. The message is an honest paper, but says not much.

The question of emancipation is not clear even in the heads of the leading emancipationists; not one thinks to give freeholds to the emancipated. It is the only way to make them useful to themselves and to the community. Freedom without land is humbug, and the fools speak of exportation of the four millions of slaves, depriving thus the country of laborers, which a century of emigration cannot fill again. All these fools ought to be sent to a lunatic asylum.

To export the emancipated would be equivalent to devastation of the South, to its transformation into a wilderness. Small freeholds for the emancipated can be cut out of the plantations of rebels, or out of the public lands of each State — lands forfeited by the rebellion.

State papers published. The instructions to the various diplomatic agents betray a beginner in the diplomatic career. By writing special instructions for each minister, Mr. Seward unnecessarily increased his task. The cause, reasons, etc., of the rebellion are one and the same for France or Russia, and a single explanatory circular for all the ministers would have done as well and spared a great deal of labor. Cavour wrote one circular to all cabinets, and so do all European statesmen. So, as they are, the State papers are a curious agglomeration of good patriotism and confusion. So the Minister to England is to avoid slavery; the Minister to France has the contrary. All this is not smartness or diplomacy, but rather confusion, insincerity, and double-dealing. One must conclude that Lincoln and Seward have themselves no firm opinion. The instructions to Mexico would sound nobly worded but for the confusion and the veil ordered to be thrown upon the cause of secession. That to Italy, above all to Austria, has a smack of a schoolmaster displaying his information before a gaping boy. It is offensive to the Minister going to Vienna. It may be suspected that some of these instructions were written to make capital at home, to astonish Mr. Lincoln with the knowledge of Europe and the familiarity with European affairs. All this display will prove to Europeans rather an ignorance of Europe. The correspondence on the Paris convention is splendid, although the initiative taken by Seward on this question was a mistake. But he argued well the case against the English and French reservations.

Never any government whatever treated so tenderly its worst and most dangerous enemies as does this government the Washington secessionists, spies for the enemy, and spreading false news here to frighten McClellan.

The old regular, but partly worn-out Republican leaders throttle and neutralize the new, fresh, vigorous accessions. So Curtis Noyes, one of the most eminent and devoted men, could not come into the Senate because Greeley wished to be elected.

No living man has rendered greater services to the people during the last twenty years than Greeley; but he ought to remain in his speciality. Greeley is no more fit for a Senator than to take the command of a regiment. Besides, the events already run over his head; Greeley is slowly breaking down. McClellan is beset with all kinds of inventors, contractors, etc. He mostly endorses their suggestions, and on this authority the most extravagant orders are given by the War Department. All this ought to be investigated. Somebody back of McClellan may be found as being the real patron of these leeches.

If the genius or capacity of a commander consists not only in closely observing the movements of the enemy, but likewise in penetrating the enemy's plans and in modifying his own in proportion as they are deranged by an unexpected movement or a rapid march, then the generalship is altogether on the other side, and on ours not a sign, not a breath of it.

A civil war is mostly the purifying fire in a nation's existence. It is to be hoped that this great convulsion will purify the free States by sounding the death-knell of these small intriguing politicians. The American people at large will acquire earnestness, knowledge of men, and clear insight into its own affairs. Tricky politicians will be discarded, and true men backed by majorities.

The South has for its leaders the chiefs who for years organized the secession, who waged everything on its success, as life, honor, fortune, and who incite and carry with them the ignorant masses.

The reverse is in the North. Mr. Lincoln was not elected for suppressing the rebellion, nor did he make his Cabinet in view of a terrible national struggle for death or life. Neither Lincoln nor his Cabinet are the inciters or the inspiring leaders of the people, but only expressions — not ad hoc — of the national will. This is one reason why the administration is slower than the people, and why the rebel administration is quicker than ours.

The second reason, and generated by the first, is, that every rebel devotes his whole soul and energy to the success of the rebellion, forcibly forgetting his individuality. Our thus called leaders think first of their little selves, whose aggrandizement the public events are to secure, and the public cause is to square itself with their individual schemes.

Such is the policy of almost all those at the helm here. Not one among them is to be found deserving the name of a statesman, endowed with a great devotion, and with a great power, for the service of a great and noble aim. From the solemn hour that the fatherland honorably chains him to its service, the genuine statesman exists no more for himself, but for his country alone. If necessary, he ought to consider himself a victim to the public good, even were the public unjust towards him. He is to treat as enemies all the dirty, tricky, and mean passions and men. His enemies will hate, but the country, his enemies included, will esteem him. Such a man will be the genuine man of the American people, but he exists not in the official spheres.

It is for the first time in history that a young, insignificant man, without a past, without any reason, is put in such a lofty position as has been McClellan; he is to be literally kicked into greatness, and into showing eventually courage. All this is a psychological problem!

Kent's Commentary upon the qualifications of a President is the best criticism upon Lincoln.

These mosquitoes of public opinion, the sensation-seekers, the sentimental preachers, the lecturers, the amateurs of the thus called representative men, these oratorical falsifiers of history, but considered here as luminaries, are already at their pernicious, nay, accursed work.

They poison the judgment of the people. These hero-seekers for their sermons, lectures, and sensation productions, have already found all the criteria of a hero in McClellan, even in his chin, in the back of his horse, etc., etc., and now herald it all over the country. Curses be upon them.

No nation has ever raised idols with such facility as do the Americans. Nay, I do not suppose that there ever existed in history a nation with such a thirst for idols as this people. I may be a false prophet; but this new idol, McClellan, will cost them their life-blood.

The Blairs are now staunch supporters of McClellan. It is unpardonable. They ought to know, and they do know better. But Mr. Blair wishes to be Secretary of War in Cameron's place, and wishes to get it through McClellan.

And poor Lincoln! I pity him; but his advisers may make out of him something worse even than was Judas, in the curses of ages.

Polybius asserts that when the Greeks wrote about Rome they erred and lied, and when the Romans wrote of themselves they lied or boasted. The same the English do in relation to themselves, and to Americans. Above all, in this Trent affair, or excitement, all European writers for the press, professors, doctors, etc., pervert facts, reason, and international laws, forget the past, and lie or flatter, with a slight exception, as is Gasparin.

The Trent affair finished. We are a little humbled, but it was expedient to terminate it so. With another military leader than McClellan, we could march at the same time to Richmond, and invest Canada before any considerable English force could arrive there. But with such a hero at our head, better that it ends so. Europe will applaud us, and the relation with England will become clarified. Perhaps England would not have been so stiff in this Trent affair but for the fixed idea in Russell's, Newcastle's, Palmerston's, etc., heads that Seward wishes to pick a quarrel with England.

The first weeks of Seward's premiership pointed that way. Mr. Seward has the honors of the Trent affair. It is well as it is; the argument is smart, but a little too long, and not in a genuine diplomatic style. But Lincoln ought to have a little credit for it, as from the start he was for giving the traitors up.

The worst feature of the whole Trent affair is, that it brought back home from France this old mischief, General Scott. He will again resume his position as the first military authority in the country, confuse the judgment of Lincoln, of the press, and of the people, and again push the country into mire.

The Congress appointed a War Investigating Committee, Senator Wade at the head. There is hope that the committee will quickly find out what a terrible mistake this McClellan is, and warn the nation of him. But Lincoln, Seward, and the Blairs, will not give up their idol.

Louis Napoleon said his word about the Trent affair. All things considered, the conduct of the Emperor cannot be complained of. The Thouvenel paper is serious, severe, but intrinsically not unfriendly. Quite the contrary. Up to this time I am right in my reliance on Louis Napoleon, on his sound, cool, but broad comprehension.

Mr. Mercier behaves well, and he is to be relied on, provided we show mettle and fight the traitors. Now, as the European imbroglio is clarified, at them, at them! But nothing to hope or expect from McClellan. I daily preach, but in the wilderness. Prince de Joinville made a very ridiculous fuss about the Trent affair.

Americans believe that a statesman must be an orator. Schoolboy-like, they judge on English precedents. In England, the Parliament is omnipotent; it makes and unmakes administrations, therefore oratory is a necessary corollary in a statesman; but here the Cabinet acts without parliamentary wranglings, and a Jackson is the true type of an American statesman. Washington was not an orator, nor was Alexander Hamilton.

SOURCE: Adam Gurowski, Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862, pp. 129-36

Diary of Gideon Welles, Tuesday, July 24, 1866

Busy through the day until dark on the subject of promotions, except for a short time at the Cabinet. The promotions will, unavoidably, give pain to many worthy men, but the principle which I have adopted will cause immensely less dissatisfaction than the original recommendations of the boards convened under the previous law. My action has been based on their recommendations, only deviating in a few cases when I was convinced injustice had been done by partiality or prejudice.

Many would be glad to dispense these promotions, but it has been to me a labor of sadness in many respects, and, though as glad as anyone to assist in rewarding merit, yet, when accompanied with the knowledge that a lifelong sorrow is to be inflicted on others, necessarily, because extra promotion cannot be made without overriding others, some of them estimable men though not proved heroic officers, I am grieved.

Mr. Stanbery, the new Attorney-General, took his seat to-day in the Cabinet. He seems to have encountered no opposition in the Senate.

Seward presented a letter which he had prepared to our Minister to Japan. I did not like it, nor have I been favorable to the course which our Government and authority have in some respects pursued towards the Japanese. We Americans had found favor in their eyes above any Christian nation. To us they had opened ports and permitted trade. The English and French sought the same privilege; ultimately these countries and the Japanese became involved in hostilities, and the two powers had their fleets there. They intrigued to get us to unite with them. But the Japanese wanted no quarrel with us. Yet Mr. Pruyn, our then Minister, persuaded or directed Captain McDougal, commanding the Jamestown, to furnish a small detachment to go on board a small steamer which was chartered and entered, with the American flag, into the fight. Although performing little or no service, the two powers were delighted, extolled our men, who were mere spectators, gave honors to our officers, who rendered no service, and when the Japanese came to terms and agreed to pay three millions, it was insisted the Americans, with their little chartered steamer and with no expectation, should receive the same as the other powers with their large fleets and great expense. Of this money, called indemnity, three hundred thousand dollars have been received. The Japanese have now requested delay in the payment of the other installments. Seward's letter was very arrogant, dictatorial, and mandatory. This Government would consent to no delay; immediate and full payment must be promptly made, unless the two other powers decided on a different course, when our hostile policy would yield and conform to theirs. I was disgusted and said so.

There was, moreover, a by-transaction in which Thurlow Weed and Lansing of Albany, a brother-in-law of the Minister, were interested to the amount of several hundred thousand dollars in gold, which had been intrusted to their hands under the advisement of the Minister for building ships years ago. When the war came on in Japan these two gentlemen with Japanese money in their pockets desired our Government to take the vessel which they had then built. President Lincoln, when I declined the purchase, was appealed to. He had one or two interviews with me, and as I considered the proceeding improper he put his name to a paper expressing a wish that she might be taken into our service. But I was finally successful, though with much difficulty, in resisting the scheme. Difficulties between our Government and Japan on other subjects relieved Weed and company in their matters.

When, therefore, Seward read his letter to-day, I expressed a wish that if a refusal were to be sent, it might be less harsh. I preferred, if he so shaped our relations that we must be tied to England and France, they should take the initiative, and we, acting independently, should consent to a reasonable delay even if they did not assent. This, I thought, sufficiently humiliating. Seward was not pleased. Stanton saw the point of my suggestion and doubted whether we should complicate ourselves with the other powers. No other one made a remark or asked a question to draw me out. They saw, which indeed was very perceptible, that Seward was nettled, and they knew not the preceding history.

I took occasion, immediately after the adjournment, to inform the President of the main points and also McCulloch. On learning the facts, both declared themselves against Seward's letter. The President said he recollected former remarks of mine in Cabinet when the notice of the first installment was announced and Seward took great credit to himself for the money. I said it cost the nation dear.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 559-62

Diary of Gideon Welles, Saturday, July 28, 1866

Went to the Capitol a little before ten this A.M. Apprehended I should be late, for we had agreed yesterday in Cabinet to meet in the President's room at nine. Only Randall was there when I arrived, and it was more than an hour before the President and others came. There had been some misunderstanding as to the hour of adjournment, on which there had been conflicting votes.

The two houses sat all night, and finished their labor of the session by increasing their own salaries $2000 each per annum, and by a bounty bill involving an expenditure of probably one hundred millions. Trumbull, who has gone astray, says not over sixty-five millions. This is waste and reckless extravagance as well as imprudent and careless legislation in almost all respects.

The President spoke to me on the subject soon after he arrived. I said promptly I hoped he would not sanction the proceeding; that it was profligate legislation and a good question with which to go before the people, — I should be glad of such an issue; — that neither wisdom, sound policy, nor good government would sanction such reckless extravagance, though the country appears dumb and indifferent over extravagant inroads; that the result of such waste and profligacy, if countenanced and approved by Executive and Congress, must end in the prostration of the Government and general repudiation.

When the bill was received and read, Seward at once remarked that the President was not responsible for the act and he had but one course to take, which was to sign the bill. Stanton said promptly he would not have voted for it had he been a Member, but that he would not advise a veto. McCulloch said the bill was not so bad as it might have been and thought the Government could stagger through it. Stanbery thought it had better be approved. I still objected. The President was reluctant, but at length signed the bill. McCulloch put his arm around me as I walked around the room and brought me up towards the President. As he did so, he said, "I know this is against your opinion, but under the circumstances we all think it is best." I told him and the President that I submitted, and he perhaps could hardly be expected to do otherwise than assent to the Act of Congress, supported by his entire Cabinet, including the Secretary of the Treasury, I only differing. The President yields on questions when his friends advise and urge him. They do not always have an opportunity. In the Cabinet economy is not a cardinal point. McCulloch has correct views, but he, also, yields too much. I should have been glad to have stood out with the President on this issue, or rather to have had him with me. The country would have been with him, because he would have been right.

I told the President that I regretted the appointment of Clark¹ to be judge in New Hampshire. He said it was not acceptable to him, but there was a confused state of things. It was hard to ascertain who was worthy. He thought some good results might grow out of it. I can see nothing good and so said. On every Constitutional point that has been raised, Clark has opposed the President. He has been vindictive. He was the tool of Fessenden in expelling Stockton, and has been as mischievously hostile as any man in the Senate. Yet he is selected to be a judge. Such selections destroy public confidence.

So far as I am, or the Navy Department is, concerned, Clark has been friendly and kind, but in his course towards the President and as a politician and legislator I think badly of him. The President has, under bad advice, committed a mistake. I am told Hendricks and some other Senators interfered for Clark. There are loose political morals in the Senate, and the President should disregard Senatorial interposition for their own members, for they favor one another at the country's expense.

I do not think the Members were exactly satisfied with themselves in closing up the session. A feeling of disappointment was apparent, and by many confessed, accompanied with conscious guilt of wrong and feebleness. Weak capabilities, shallow statesmanship, and intense partisanship are the qualities of this Congress.

_______________

¹ Daniel Clark, Senator from New Hampshire, 1857-66, appointed United States Judge for the District of New Hampshire.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 563-5

Diary of Gideon Welles, Monday, July 30, 1866

Senator Doolittle called and wished me to accompany him to the President to meet General Dix, and we sent to McCulloch to go there also. The selection of Dix as Minister to The Hague, a third-class mission, is doing good. It is opening the eyes of Doolittle and McCulloch, and I think the President, to the course of Weed and Seward.

Doolittle called on me the morning that this nomination was announced, and asked what it meant. Said we could not spare Dix from the country at this time. I told him there was no probability that Dix would leave. Certainly not on that mission. "What, then, does it mean?" said Doolittle. I replied that it was intended to dispose of Dix. The appointment was derogatory and designed to belittle him, and then, as he would not accept, the place would be kept open for Seward to play with.

I saw when I met Dix this morning that he was, for him, a good deal disturbed, and was glad to have him express his dissatisfaction and his opinions, and the views of others. He says Weed is playing a strange game in relation to Governor of New York. Tells of Weed's and Seward's policy, though only Weed's name used. Says that when Weed wants his own party and servants to be beaten, he selects a weak candidate, etc.

Smythe, the Collector, came in soon after Dix went out, and he was even more full than Dix in disclosing Weed's intrigues and the lectures and teachings of which he was the recipient. Weed told Smythe he was a merchant and no politician. Smythe said he knew enough to fire at mark, though he might not hit it.

 SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 566

Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, Saturday, January 12, 1861

Mr Sewards Speech is the great event of the day. Did not hear it. The Senate Chamber was crowded by 9 o'clock. Got letter from Julia through Cha^s. Wrote her today. Hardly know how to get her Home, or (in fact) whether it is best for her to come here to Washington at this Crisis. Went round to the Hotels this evening. Gave Mr Hoard M.C. from N.Y. name of ex^mr in Pa^t office who got pay in advance and then “Seceded” (R. R. Rhodes of Mississippi). Pay Clerk Hugh M^cCormick, all unlawful. The indications now are that Virginia & Maryland will both “secede.” Cold and windy today. Temperature about the same as yesterday.

SOURCE: Horatio Nelson Taft, The Diary of Horatio Nelson Taft, 1861-1865. Volume 1, January 1,1861-April 11, 1862, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington D. C., image 7.

Diary of Henry Greville, Wednesday, January 29, 1862

Tottenham Park.¹—І came here on Monday and found the Flahaults, Charles Bruces, Lady Ailesbury², Granville, Dunkellin, Henry Corry, and George Bruce. The place is much improved by the alterations already made, and those in progress. Some days ago Lady Holland wrote to me from Paris, that it was believed there that one of the objects of King Leopold's visit to England was to advocate an arrangement by which his son-in-law, the Archduke Maximilian, should be made Emperor of Mexico, and that the new Empire should be guaranteed by England as well as France and Austria. I treated this report as an idle canard, though it was subsequently repeated in the French newspapers. To-day I was surprised, on mentioning the report to Flahault, to hear from him that the Emperor would be very willing to lend himself to any such arrangement, provided there were a strong monarchical party in Mexico, and that His Majesty would not object even to lend the aid of a French Army if it were necessary. It is now said that the Archduke declines having anything to do with this project. John Russell's despatch in answer to Mr. Seward's long rigmarole on the rights of neutrals is published, and is a well-reasoned document, and will show the Americans that they will not be allowed to play their tricks with impunity.

There is also a curious correspondence published on the Papal Question between M. Thouvenel and M. de Lavalette, wherein the Pope is conjured, ' whilst it is time, to act no longer on the basis of exploded pretensions and untenable claims, but to descend from the imaginary elevation on which he has placed himself, into the lower world of facts and opinions, of things and realities, and to condescend to look at his own position through the medium of a plain common sense.' To this, M. de Lavalette replies, that to all suggestions of this nature, His Holiness answers, 'Let us wait on events,' that on addressing himself to Cardinal Antonelli, His Eminence has recourse to the non possumus. It is not, he maintains, in the power of any Pope or College of Cardinals to assent to the diminution of the States of the Church. They have taken an oath to maintain them in their integrity. It is argued by some people, and not without good reason, that if the Emperor intended to perpetrate the occupation of Rome, he would not have suffered this correspondence to be published, because his position with regard to that question was already bad enough, without aggravating it by making it transparently manifest to the rest of the world that he was powerless to obtain any concessions from the Pope. I suspect the Papal feeling in France is so strong as to make the withdrawal of the French army from Rome dangerous to the Emperor, and Cardinal Antonelli is quite conscious of the strength of that party. As a proof of this strong feeling, I will cite a curious thing that happened the other day at Paris. Edmond About, the famous author of several anti-Papal pamphlets, brought out a drama at the Odéon a short time ago, called 'Gaetana.' The audience positively refused to allow the piece to be heard, and at the very beginning made such an uproar, that the actors were unable to proceed. This scene was repeated on every subsequent attempt to act it, and it was ultimately withdrawn; and a large part of the audience proceeded to About's house, where they gave him a charivari. In the provinces the same thing occurred, and at Lyons the tumult was so serious that the military were called out to quell it, and About with difficulty escaped from ill-treatment at the hands of the mob.

_______________

1 Tottenham Park. Now called Savernake. It stands in Savernake Forest. I believe the present owner has reverted to the former name.—Ed.

2 Lady Ailesbury. Maria, second wife of the first Marquis of Ailesbury. Known in society as “Lady A.”—Ed.

 

SOURCE: Alice Countess of Stratford, Leaves from the Diary of Henry Greville: 1861-1872, pp. 13-5

Diary of Adam Gurowski, November 1861

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