DIARY. (continued 4)

As a watchdog faithful to the people's cause, I try to stir up the shepherds—but alas! alas....

May 22.—Wrote a letter to Senator Wade explaining to him how incapable is Hooker of commanding a large army, how his habits and associations are contaminating and ruinous to the spirit of the army, and that Hooker is to return to the command of a corps or two.

May 23.—Vainly! vainly in all directions, among the helmsmen, leaders and commanders I search for a man inspired, or, at least, an enthusiast wholly forgetting himself for the holiness of the aim. Enthusiasm is eliminated from higher regions; is outlawed, is almost spit upon. Enthusiasm! that most powerful stimulus for heart and reason, and which alone expands, purifies, elevates man's intellectual faculties. Here the people, the unnamed, have enthusiasm, and to the people belong those noble patriots so often mentioned. But the men in power are cold, and extinguished as ashes. Jackson the President, Jackson the general, was an enthusiast. Enthusiasts have been the founders of this Republic.

Whatever was done great and noble in this world, was done by enthusiasts. The whole scientific progress of the human mind is the work of enthusiasm!

May 24.—Grant and the Western army before Vicksburgh unfold endurance, and fertility of resources, which, if shown by a McClellan and his successors, having in their hands such a powerful engine as was and is the Potomac Army, would have made an end to the rebellion. Happy Grant, Rosecrans and their armies! to be far off from the deleterious Washington influences and adulations. Influences and adulations ruined the commanders and many among the generals of the Potomac army. Adulations, intrigue, and helplessness fill, nay constitute the generals atmosphere. In various ways every body contributes to that atmosphere—participates in it. Every body influences or intrigues in the army. The President, the various Secretaries, Senators, Congressmen, newspapers, contractors, sutlers, jobbers, politicians, mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts and loose crinolines. Jews, publicans, etc., and the rest of social leprosy. All this cannot thus immediately and directly reach the Western armies, the Western commanders, when it reaches, it is already—to some extent—weakened, oxygenated, purified. Add to it here the direct influence and meddling of the head-quarters. I pity this fated army here, and at times I even pity the commanders and the generals.

May 25.—Grant is an eminent man as to character and as to capacity. To Admiral Foote and to him are due the victories at Fort Henry, of Donelson, and the bold stroke to enter into the interior of Secessia. Had Halleck not intervened, had Halleck and Buell not taken the affairs in their hands, Foote and Grant would have taken Nashville early in the spring of 1862, and cleared perhaps half of the Mississippi. After the capture of Fort Donelson, Foote demanded to be allowed at once to go with his gunboats to Nashville, to clear the Tennessee; but Halleck caved in, or rather comprehended not. Grant and Rosecrans restored what Halleck and Buell brought to the brink of ruin.

May 28.—Mr. Seward, omnipotent in the White House, tries to conciliate the public, and in letters, etc., whitewashes himself from arrests of persons, etc. Mr. Seward is therefore innocent, thereof, as a lamb. But who inaugurated and directed them in 1861? I know the necessities of certain times, and am far from accusing; but how can Seward attempt to throw upon others the first steps made in the direction of arrests?

May 28.—Hooker still in command, and not even his staff changed. I am certain that Stanton is for the change in the staff.

May 28.—I am assured that the Blairs (I am not sure if General Blair is counted in) are the pedlars for Mr. Lincoln's re-election, as stated by the New York Herald. If Mr. Lincoln is re-elected, then the self-government is not yet founded on reason, intellect, and on sound judgment.

May 31.—I am assured by a diplomat that four hundred and thirteen is the last number of the correspondence between the Department of State and Lord Lyons. Oh, how much ink and paper wasted, and what a writing dysentery on both sides. The diplomat in question added that it was only from January first—of course it was a joke.

JUNE, 1863.

Banks — "The Enemy Crippled" — Count Zeppelin — Hooker-Stanton — "Give Him a Chance" — Mr. Lincoln's Looks — Rappahannock — Slaughter — North Invaded — "To be Stirred up" — Blasphemous Curtin — Banquetting — Desperate — Groping — Retaliation — Foote — Hooker — Seward — Panama — Chase — Relieved — Meade — Nobody's fault — Staffs, etc., etc., etc.

June 1.—For some time Banks seems to move in the right direction. Banks no more intends to destroy slavery, and not thereby to hurt the slave-holders. So Banks has become himself again, and the Sewardean creed is evaporated. Banks has under him very good officers, and intelligent, fighting generals; some of them left by Butler, others, as for instance, Generals Augur, Stone, etc., who embarked with Banks.

June 2.—I hear it reported that Hooker maintains that he has worsted and crippled the enemy more than if he had taken Richmond.

If the enemy in reality was worsted to that extent, it was not in the least done by Hooker, Butterfield & Co.'s generalship, but this time, as always, it was done by the bravery of the troops, notwithstanding the bad generalship, not by, but in spite of, that bad generalship.

June 3.—Count Zeppelin, an officer of the staff and aide to the King of Wurtemberg, came here to observe and to learn how not to do it! The Count visited the army at Falmouth. He was horror-struck at the prevailing disorder, and at the general and special miscomprehension of the needed knowledge and of the duties prevailing in the staff of the army. The Count says that if this confusion continues, the rebels may dare almost every thing. Count Zeppelin is what would be called here, a thorough Union man. He revolted greatly at witnessing the nonchalance with which human life is dealt with in the army, and the carelessness of commanders about the condition of soldiers; the latter he most heartily admires, and therefore the more pities their fate. He assured me that rebel agents scattered in Germany tried their utmost to secure for the rebel army officers of the various arms. This explains the organization and the brilliant manœuvrings of the celebrated Stuart's cavalry, the novel rebel tactics in the use of artillery, and the attack by columns at Chancellorsville.

June 3.—Hooker, they say, waits to see what Lee will do. In other words, we are on the defensive, after such efforts and so much blood wasted. O, Ezekiel! O, Deuteronomy! help me to bless the leaders and the chiefs of this people.

I am told by a very good authority, that Mr. Lincoln takes a special care of his fellow-townsmen in Springfield. What a good, honest, neighborly sentiment, provided always that the public good is not suffering by it!

June 3.—A senator, who urged Mr. Lincoln to dismiss Halleck, was answered, that "as Halleck has not a single friend in the country, Mr. Lincoln feels himself in duty bound to stand by him." Admirable, but costly stubbornness.

June 3.—Poor Hooker! He is now the laughingstock of Europe. I wish he may recover what he has lost or squandered. But alas! even now Hooker makes no attempt to surround himself with a genuine staff.

I wrote to Stanton, imploring him for the country's and for his own sake, to compel Hooker to reform his staff, and not to allow science to be any longer trodden under foot. I implored Stanton that either the President or he would select and nominate a chief-of-staff for Hooker, or rather for the Potomac army, as it is done in Europe. Stanton understands well the disastrous deficiency, and if he could, he would immediately go at it and change. But, first, the statutes or regulations, obligatory here, leave it with the commander to appoint his own staff and its chief. Stupid, rusty, foggyish and fogyish regulations, so perfectly in harmony with the general ignorance of what ought to be the staff of an army! Second, Stanton must yield to another will, and to what is believed here to be the higher knowledge of military affairs.

June 3.—"Give to Hooker one chance more," says Mr. Lincoln, and so say several members of the Cabinet; "McClellan had so many."—Because they allowed McClellan to waste human life and time, it surely is no reason to repeat the sacrilegious condescension. A general may be unfortunate, lose a battle, or even lose a campaign; all this without being damnable when he has shown capacity, when he did his utmost, but could not conciliate fatum on his side. But such is not the case with Hooker, and such emphatically was not the case with McClellan and with Burnside.

June 3.—During these last fourteen days, the big men have been expecting a raid on Washington. More fortifications are constructed, and rifle pits dug. This time the Administration is perfectly right. All is probable and possible when capacity, decision, and lightning-like execution are on the one side, and on the other sham-science, want of earnestness, slowness and indecision.

June 5.—A very reliable and honorable patriot tells me that grandissimo Chase looks down upon any advice, suggestion, or warning. O, the great man! A time must come when all these great men will be held to a terrible account, will shed tears of blood, and their names will be scorned by coming generations, and the track to the White House may become also the track to the Tarpeian rock.

June 5.—I often meet Mr. Lincoln in the streets. Poor man! He looks exhausted, care-worn, spiritless, extinct. I pity him! Mr. Lincoln's looks are those of a man whose nights are sleepless, and whose days are comfortless. That is the price for a greatness to which he is not equal. Yet Mr. Lincoln, they say, wishes to be re-elected!

June 5.—Mr. Seward makes a speech to the volunteers of Auburn. All the same logomachy, all the same cold patriotism, all the same I, and all the same squint towards the next presidential election.

June 6.—Lincoln cannot realize to what extent Seward is and has been his evil spirit. Even the nearest in blood and heart to Lincoln know it, feel it, are awe-struck by it, warn him, and he is insensible.

June 7.—How I sympathize with Stanton, and admire his rude—others call it coarse—contempt of all that is said about him. That impure, lying, McClellan-Copperhead motley crew, accuse Stanton of all the numberless criminal mistakes committed in the conduct of the war—committed by the generals, etc. Stanton never interferes with Mr. Lincoln nor with Halleck in matters that exclusively relate to pure warfare, as where and how to march the respective armies, how and in what way to attack the enemy, etc.

Reliable patriots coincide with me, that Stanton as clearly sees every thing to-day, as he saw it when entering on his thorny duty. I only wonder that he holds out in such an atmosphere. Stanton's energy is indomitable. Blair's party says that "Stanton goes off at half-cock." It is not true; but even if true, better to go off at half-cock than not at all. Many say that Stanton ought to retire, if he is hampered by others in the exercise of his duties. But if he were to retire, he could not at this moment reveal to the people the causes of such a step, and by remaining at his post, Stanton prevents still greater disasters and disgraces. He never asks any of his friends to say or to write a word in his defence, or rather to dispel the lies with which McClellanites and copperheads poison the atmosphere all around them.

June 8.—Alexandria fortified, rifle-pits dug, etc. The third year of the war is the third terror upon Washington, and upon those counterfeit penates.

June 8.—What for—for heaven's or devil's sake—Hooker throws a division of cavalry across the Rappahannock, right in the dragon's jaw! All the rebel army is on the other side, and this, our division, can never be decidedly supported. It cannot be a reconnaissance—of what? It cannot be a stratagem to surprise Lee. If Lee wants to march anywhere north or west, this demonstration of Hooker's will not for a minute arrest Lee.

June 9.—The great Henry Ward Beecher emigrates for a time to Europe. His parish richly supports him for the trip, and the preacher sells his choice, and as it is said, beloved picture gallery. It is not for want of money. Strange! What a curious manifestation of patriotism!

June 10.—The demonstration over the Rappahannock turned out to be a slaughter of the cavalry. What! Was Hooker again stunned, to make such a deliberate mistake—nay, crime? Such a demonstration never could prevent Stuart from moving, even if our troops had defeated or worried him—even if victorious, our cavalry would have been forced to recross the Rappahannock, and Stuart, having behind him Lee's whole army, which could easily reinforce him, would then move again. Our force of nine thousand men, distant from support, attack a superior force of fifteen thousand, who besides have within supporting distance a whole army! This demonstration prevents nothing, decides nothing, beyond the worst, the most damnable generalship. General Hooker and his chief-of-staff are personally responsible for every soldier lost there.

June 11.—Again visitings to the army. Senators, ladies, magnifico Chase leading on. O, if the guerrillas could sweep them!

June 12.—Crippled men are to be met in all directions, on all the streets. One-third of the amputated limbs undoubtedly could have been saved by the Medical Department, were it in better hands, and above all, if surgeons had been called in from Europe—the domestic surgeons not being sufficient for the demand.

June 13.—The principle of election, the only true one, a principle recognized and asserted as well by antiquity as by the primitive Church, recognized by rationalists, by Fourier, by radical, or any democracy whatever—that principle must undergo an immense improvement before it shall act in all its perfection. The elector must be altogether self-governing, and not governed or influenced by anybody in his choice and vote. The elector himself must stand on an elevated level before by his vote he raises one or several above that level. When the people's vote confers the highest trust to one rather below than in the level, and still less one above the level, then even the most intelligent people in the world, being thus misdirected, misconducted, confused, in a very short time become almost enervated, and, so to speak, loses its self-possession, and its sense of duty and of right becomes shaken, its intellectual light dimmed. Exempla sunt odiosa.

June 14.—The cavalry expedition over the Rappahannock was to arrest any further offensive movements of the rebels. But lo! the rebel army, so to speak, spreads in all directions, and takes the offensive. We do not even know positively where Lee is going, where he will appear and strike. We are shaking in, and for, Washington.

Mr. Lincoln is unshaken in his confidence in Hooker and Butterfield.

June 15.—By a bold and rapid manœuvre Lee has thrown his troops over the valley, over the Potomac, into Maryland, and God alone knows where Lee will stop. Lee's advance must have been already on the Potomac when the slaughter of our cavalry over the Rappahannock was planned at the various head-quarters. How splendidly Lee's movements have been arrested by that demonstration! Lee is on the Potomac, and it seems that his movements have been ignored. His armies, to be sure, have not been surrounded by a cloud, as the Jews were in their exodus from the land of bondage, but the cloud was hanging over the head-quarters in the army and in Washington.

June 16.—The North invaded—threatened, shaken to the marrow! The audacity of the rebels is stimulated by our sluggishness. If the accounts in the War Department are true, then from Fortress Monroe to the Potomac, including Baltimore and Maryland, we have about two hundred thousand men, and the rebels dare! O, the rebels! what a desperate conception, what a lightning-like execution! Dutifully re-echoing the words uttered by their masters, the partisans of the Administration console themselves by saying that "this invasion of the North will have the effect of stirring up the North from its lethargy." O, you blasphemers! worse blasphemers than ever have been stoned or burned alive! Is the North not pouring forth its blood and its treasures, and are they not all squandered by counterfeits?

June 16.—The draft is not put in motion, because for weeks and months Mr. Lincoln adjusts the appointments to be made under this law, adjusts them to the exigencies of politicians. Jeff Davis executes the draft with an iron hand. Mr. Lincoln thus gives time to the Copperheads, to the disciples of the Seymours, of the Woods, of the World, to organize a resistance. Bloodshed may come!

June 16.—This invasion of Pennsylvania ought to be investigated. Light must be brought into this dark, muddy, stinking labyrinth. Weeks ago, honest, clear-sighted, patriotic Governor Curtin asked authority to arm the militia of his State, and was snubbed in Washington. Will this new disgrace serve to strengthen the Administration? Quite possible.

June 16.—Pennsylvania invaded, the country disgraced, and our helmsmen, our Secretaries of State and of the Treasury, give banquets! O, what a stoicism! a stoicism sui generis. The homes of the farmers whose sons bleed on fields of battle, are invaded, their hearths threatened with desolation, and the helmsmen sip Champagne, paid for by the people!

June 17.—Halleckiana. Rosecrans telegraphed to head-quarters that he cannot send any troops to Grant, and that if he, Rosecrans, is to attack Bragg, he must have reinforcements. Answer: "Do what you like, on your own responsibility."

June 17.—Hooker seems to have lost his former dash. He must have known that the rebels extended from Gordonsville to Pennsylvania, and he, moving in almost a parallel direction to that line, ought to have cut it, or at least its tail.

General Ewell at Winchester. Hooker seems to doubt what he can do. The soldiers of his army can do anything ever done by any soldiers in the world—but lead them on, O Generals! Hooker has ninety-four thousand men, and, McClellan-like, waits for more; laments that he is outnumbered. A good general, having such a number, and of such troops, would never hesitate to attack an enemy numbering one hundred and twenty thousand, and the more so, as Hooker's command is massed, while Lee's is not. And I'll risk my head that Lee's whole army, all over the valley, and over Pennsylvania, and over Maryland, is smaller than Hooker's. It is the same old trick of the rebels and of their friends, to throw dust in our eyes by magnifying their numbers. The trick is always successful, because on our side it is wished to extenuate incapacity by the supposed large numbers of the rebel armies.

June 18.—The North rises. New York sends its militia. The people fails not, but how about the helmsmen?

The Democrats—the Copperheads roar for McClellan. Well! the like Democrats glorifying McClellan, show their patriotism, their metal and their judgment. These Copperhead-Democrats may insist upon calling McClellan a captain and a hero, but history will give another verdict, and history will credit to the Democrats the fact that they have adroitly poisoned and perverted the good faith of the honest but credulous Democratic rank and file.

June 18.—The Administration's simon pure echoes, politicians, etc., try to persuade everybody that the invasion of Pennsylvania is nothing, a mere tempest in a tea-pot. Whom do they hope to humbug in this way? The disgrace is nameless, only they are callous enough not to feel it. Their cheeks can no more redden.... However, Stanton is not so optimist. It would look so farcical if it were not so deadly to witness. Hooker groping his way after Lee; Lincoln and the all-knowing head-quarters in the utmost darkness about Lee, his army, his movements, and his plans. And all this while the country, the people, is kept officially ignorant of its honor, of its fate. All publicity and communication is suppressed—not to inform thereby the enemy of our movements. How idiotic, how silly! As if the march and the movements of an army of one hundred thousand men could be kept secret from a vigilant and desperate enemy, and the enemy wanted to read the papers for it. Good for us!

I cannot hope against hope, and expect that Hooker, Butterfield, Lincoln, Halleck will out-manœuvre Lee, bold, quick, and desperate as he is.

June 19.—The jobbers, the contractors, the gold, stock, and exchange speculators wish for the prolongation of the war. For this reason, disasters are rather welcome to them. Oh! to crush those ignoble and demoniac monsters.

June 20.—I cannot comprehend how Lee could have dared such a desperate movement, even if relying on the confusion and senselessness prevailing in our military movements. Lee must have had some kind of encouragement from the Copperheads before he risked a step, which ought to end in his utter destruction, even with a Halleck, Hooker and Butterfield as our commanders.

June 20.—Hooker has more than ninety thousand men in hand—his rear, his supplies, his depots covered by Heintzelman, and by the defences of Washington. This alone is equal to fifty thousand more. And with all this, the treble head-quarters, in the White House in G street, and in the army cannot find Lee, and therefore the rebels are not attacked, and lay Pennsylvania waste. O, staffs, O, staffs!

June 20.—More than any other army in the world, the American army requires to have a thoroughly organized staff, with very intelligent staff officers. Such staff officers carry orders to generals and to colonels who, although brave and devoted, may often not altogether comprehend certain sacramental technicalities of an order delivered by mouth, or written briefly in the saddle.

The officer ought to be able to explain the order. Think of it, you wiseacres and organisers of American armies.

June 21.—Small cavalry skirmishes without signification. The curtain is not rended, and the enemy rolls towards the heart of Pennsylvania. How will it end?

June 22.—Nobody of the various upper and lower Chiefs can find Lee. Give twenty thousand men to a bold man even not a general, and in twenty-four hours he will bring you positive news about Lee's army.

June 23.—It seems that Lee waits, if we divide our army, to strike a blow on Washington. Thus he will be baffled; there is a limit even to our military blunders.

June 24.—Incorrigible Seward. France invites our Government to participate in the diplomatic coercion against Russia. Of course, Americans refuse. Mr. Seward, in harmony with the feeling of the people politely snuff off France. But O, Mr. Seward, why pervert history or show your ignorance, even of the national events and of Congressional records. The United States, Adams II., President, sent commissioners to the Congress of Panama, and the United States Congress did it after a discussion of several days. What is the use to deny it now? Then Mr. Seward is insincere to both parties. Speaking of "a temporary transient revolt here" he seemingly insinuates, that but for this transient revolt he would perhaps try his hand at the European game. It would look so grand to be in company with the Decembriseur. Then the only impediment would be the people's will different from yours, oh, Seward! The refusal in the dispatch re-echoes the convictions of the American people; its shilly-shally conditionality is exclusively Sewardism and only fit to catch a Russian diplomat in Washington.

June 25.—Hooker crosses to Maryland with nearly one hundred thousand men. Lee is still on both sides of the Potomac. By a blow Hooker could cut Lee's army, break it, and retrieve what he lost at Chancellorsville. Oh, how I wish he may do it. But since Hooker has refused to mend his staff, all hope is lost. Stanton sees the condition very clearly, but Butterfield is in good odor in the White House.

June 26.—Lee's movements and invasion puzzle me more and more. The raid into Pennsylvania is the move of a desperate commander, almost of a madman, playing his whole fortune on one card. If Lee comes safe out of it, then doubtless he is the best general of our times, and we the best nincompoops that ever the sun looked upon and blushed for.

June 26.—The reports give to Lee an army of two hundred thousand men. Impossible! Where could the rebels scrabble together such a number? The old trick to frighten us. If, however, Lee should have even only from one hundred to one hundred and fifty thousand, then relying on the high capacity of our various head-quarters, the rebel chiefs may have gathered what they could take from Charleston and from Bragg, and massed it to try a decided blow on Washington. But this cloud, this dust cannot last long; whatever be our head-quarters, light must come, and the cloud burst with blood and thunder.

One meets in Washington individuals praising sky-high Mr. Lincoln's military capacity, and saying that he alone embraces all the extensive line of military operations, combines, directs them, etc. Pretty well has all this succeeded, and why cannot the younger generation seize the helm in this terrible crisis? How I ardently wish to see there an Andrew, Boutwell, Coffey, and more, more of those new men.

June 27.—From a very reliable, honest, and not conspiring secessionist in Washington, I learn that a Northern Copperhead visited Jeff Davis in Richmond, and stimulated the rebel chief to carry into the north a war of retaliation by fire and sword, but that Jeff Davis refused to instruct Lee for devastation. I instantly told Stanton my news; and now I doubt not in the least that the invasion is concerted with Northern Copperheads.

June 28.—The following is this morning the military condition of the city with the forts and defences: Hooker took all he could and all he met on his way. To defend the works around Washington Heintzelman has six thousand infantry, and not two hundred cavalry. The rebels have cavalry all around, within six or eight miles. A dash of twenty thousand infantry, and Washington is done!

June 28.—Admiral Foote dead. Irreparable loss. Foote was of the stamp of Lyon, of the stamp of patriot-heroes. He died of exhaustion, that is, of devotion to the country. Foote was an honor to the navy and to the American people.

June 28.—Yesterday, Friday, the candidate for presidency, splendid Chase, stood up mightily for Hooker. Oh, Mr. Chase! you may be a great or a doubtful financier, but keep rather mute on military matters. You know as much about them as this d—— mosquito that is just now biting my nose.

June 28.—At last, Hooker relieved. I pity Meade to receive a command at such a critical moment. But now or never, to show his mettle, his capacity! The army thinks very highly of Meade. Will Halleck soon be sent to California? Then the country's cause will be safe.

June 29.—Yesterday a rebel cavalry raid captured an immense train of provisions, cattle, etc., worth about five hundred thousand dollars, and within eight or twelve miles of Washington! Of course, it is nobody's fault. In other armies and countries, such a large train would have a very strong convoy—here it had scarcely a small squadron of cavalry. The original fault is, first, with Hooker's chief-of-staff, who is responsible for providing the army, and for the security of the provision trains. So at least it is in European armies. Second, with the head-quarters at Washington, who ought to have known that the enemy, ant-like, spreads in the rear of Hooker. The head-quarters ought to have informed the quartermaster thereof, and provided a strong convoy. This train affair is the younger brother of the Fredericksburg pontoons.

Third, the head-quarters of the army and the quartermasters ought to have inquired at the head-quarters of the defenses of Washington, if the roads are safe. But of course it was not done, as the big men here possess all the prescience, and need no valuable information. All of them appear to me as ostriches, who hide their heads and eyes, not to see the danger.

June 29.—General Heintzelman is as thorough a soldier as any to-day in Washington—a soldier superior to head-quarters of the army. Heintzelman commands the military district which south, west and north touches on the theatre of the present campaign. In similar conditions and circumstances, any other government, sovereign, commander-in-chief, etc., would consult with the commander of the defences of the capital and of the military district around the city; here Heintzelman is not noticed.

June 30.—How will Meade compose his staff? All depends on that. In the present positions of Meade's and Lee's armies, even a Napoleon could not do much without a very good staff.

Were the staffs of the American armies organized as they are in Europe, no difficulty would exist. In Europe the staffs of the armies are independent from the persons of their commanders. When a commander is changed, the staff and its chief remains, and thus the new commander at a glance and in a few hours can become thoroughly familiar with the position and condition of the army, and with the plans of his predecessor, etc., etc. Often such commanders are changed and sent from one end of the country to the other. In 1831, Paschkewitsch was ordered from the Caucasus to Poland, to supersede Diesbitsch.

June 30.—Since Calhoun, the creed of the simon pure Democratic party intrinsically marked a degradation of man and of humanity. Its logical, unavoidable and final outlets must have been secession, treason, and copperheadism; its apotheosis, South, the rebels; North, the Woods, the Seymours, the Vallandighams and the World. The creed of the Republican party is humane. The simon pure democratic rank and file, North and South, intellectually and morally constitute the lowest stratum of American society. Progress, civilization, intellectual, healthy activity principally are embodied in the Republican rank and file. True men, as a Marcy, a Guthrie, and some few similar, throw a pure and bright light on the Democratic party; many from among the official and political Republican notabilities throw a dismal and dark shadow on the intrinsically elevated and pure principles of the party.

JULY, 1863.

Eneas — Anchises — General Warren — Aldie — General Pleasanton — Superior mettle — Gettysburgh — Cholera morbus — Vicksburgh — Army of heroes — Apotheosis — "Not name the Generals" — Indian warfare — Politicians — Spittoons — Riots — Council of War — Lords and Lordlings — Williamsport — Shame — Wadsworth — "To meet the Empress Eugénie," etc., etc., etc.

July 1.—It is worth while to ascertain if the Administration is prepared to run. During last year's invasion of Maryland, at the foot of C street a swift vessel was, day and night, kept under steam—(in the greatest secrecy)—to carry away the American gods. Eneas-Seward was to carry on his shoulders Anchises-Lincoln. I was told that certain gallant secretaries promised to certain gallant ladies to take them into the ark.

July 1.—Meade makes General Warren his chief-of-staff. For the first time in this war, in-doors and out-doors, a man for the place. I never saw Warren, but have heard much in his favor. Then he is young. Then he is not conceited. Then he is no intriguer. Then he is fighting always and everywhere. Then he speaks not of strategy. A brighter promise. Genuine science and intelligence dawn on our muddy, dark, ignorant horizon.

Four weeks ago Meade might have been already in the command of the army. (See after Chancellorsville.) Perhaps Lee would have been to-day shut up in Richmond instead of laying waste Pennsylvania.

July 1.—The people will never know to what extent Mr. Lincoln-Halleck are stumbling-blocks in all military affairs. If Lincoln had even a Carnot for Secretary of War, the affairs would not go better than they go now.

July 1.—General Meade is the pure, simple result of military necessity. His choice is not adulterated by any party spirit. Success may be probable, if Meade is in reality what his colleagues suppose or assert him to be.

July 2.—The property of the great patriot Thaddeus Stevens destroyed by the rebels. I am as sure as of my existence, that the rebel hordes were urged by the Copperheads and by Northern traitors, by the disciples of the World, etc.

July 2.—Copperheads and their organs scream to have McClellan at the head of the armies. This enthusiasm for McClellan soon will be a burning shame. For many it is a mental disease, and almost unparallelled in the history of our race. A man of defeats and of incapacity to be thus worshipped as a hero! To what extent sound intellects can become poisoned by lies! O, Democrats! what a kin and kith you are! The stubborn, undaunted bravery of the people keeps the country above water, when McClellan and his medley of believers dragged and drags her down into the abyss. Soon infamy will cover the names of those who wail for McClellan's glory, the names of these deliberate betrayers of the people's good faith.

July 2.—Count Zeppelin was at the cavalry fight at Aldie. In his appreciation, General Pleasanton is almost the ideal of a general of cavalry, in the manner in which he fought his forces. The Count says that our soldiers are by far superior to the rebels, that our regiments, squadrons, showed the utmost bravery, that in single-handed mélés our soldiers showed a superior mettle, and that during the whole fight he did not see a single soldier back out or retire.

Count Zeppelin spent three weeks with Hooker. The Count never saw Hooker intoxicated, but nevertheless, he does not believe Hooker to be the man for the command of a large army. The Count, an educated officer of staff, deplores the utter absence of that special science in the heads of the staff.

The Count was with the army during its march from Falmouth to Frederick. He admires the endurance, the good spirit, and the cohesion shown by the army marching under great difficulties, such as bad roads, heat, &c.

July 2.—News of fight at Gettysburgh. It seems that this time a plan was boldly conceived, and carried out with rapidity and bravery. It seems that now a general commands, and has at his side a chief-of-staff.

July 2.—A crystalized section of abolitionists has, it seems, dispatched to England a Rev. Dr. Conway, who put on airs, began a silly correspondence with Mason the traitor, and has thrown ridicule on the cause and on the men whom he is supposed to represent.

July 3.—Some details from Gettysburgh. Most sanguinary and stubborn fighting. General Reynolds, the flower of our army, killed. The unblemished patriot, General Wadsworth, fought most splendidly, and is reported to be wounded. His son was beside Reynolds. Mark this, you world's offals in the World. Nothing like you can be found in the purlieus of the most stinking social sewers.

July 3.—Whoever wishes to know how, in Mr. Seward's mind, right and law are equipoised, should read the correspondence between the State Department and the Attorney-General in the case of a criminal runaway from Saxony. Astraea-Themis-Bates is always bold and manly when right, justice, when individual or general human rights are questioned. Bates' official, legal opinions will remain as a noble record of his official activity during this bloody tornado.

July 3.—Most contradictory news and rumors. To a great extent, the fortunes of the Union may be decided at Gettysburgh. Copperheads alias Peace-Democrats more dangerous than the rebels in arms. The Copperheads poisoned and paralyzed the spirit of the people; the Pennsylvanians look on, and rise not as a man in the defence of their invaded state.

July 4.—General Wallbridge the orator of the day. O tempora Lincolniana!

It is fortunate for the country and for General Meade that no telegraphic communication exists between Washington and his camp.

July 8.—July 4th, in the evening, I was struck with cholera morbus. In two hours I was delirious, and the end of the Diary and of myself was at hand. Those who may be interested in the Diary, be thankful to fatum and to my friend in whose house I was taken sick. I am up and again on the watch.

July 8.—However, I have lost the run of events. I have lost the piquant of observation how the events of Gettysburgh affected the big men here. I may have lost the echo of some stories told on the occasion at the White House.

Vicksburgh taken! No words to glorify Grant, Farragut, Porter, and the army of heroes on land and on the waters.

I wake up and open a paper. Apotheosis! Yesterday evening Mr. Seward made a speech and glorified himself into Christ. Why not? At the beginning of this internecine war, Mr. Seward repeatedly played the inspired, the prophet, and even the Spirit, having the polyglotic gift. In illo tempore Mr. Seward advised the foreign diplomats to bring to him their respective dispatches received from their respective governments, and he, Seward, would explain to each diplomat the meanings of what the dispatches contain. Perhaps the spirit was an after-dinner spirit!

In the above-mentioned speech Mr. Seward exclaimed, "If I fall!" O, you will fall, and you will be covered with ... I shall not stain the paper. Plenty of lickspittles glorifying Lincoln-Seward.

July 8.—The battles at Gettysburgh will stand almost unparalleled in history for the courage, tenacity, and martial rage shown on both sides, by the soldiers, the officers and the generals. This four-days' struggle may be put above Attila's fight in the plains of Chalons; it stands above the celebrated battle of giants at Marignan between the French and the Swiss. No legions, no troops ever did more, nay, ever did the same. At Waterloo one-third of the French infantry was not engaged in the previous days of Ligny and of Quatres-bras, and three-fourths of the Anglo-allied army were fresh, and not fatigued even by forced marches. I am sure that no other troops in the world could fight with such a stubborn bravery four consecutive days; not the English, not even the iron-muscled Russians.

I learn that during the invasion of Pennsylvania, and above all, during the last days, all the country expected something extraordinary from the army at Fortress Monroe, under General Dix's command. But the affair ended in expectations.

A few days ago the President declared in a speech that he dares not introduce the names of the generals. Not to name the victor at Gettysburgh, the undaunted captor of Vicksburgh! The people repeat your names, O heroes! even if the President remains dumb.

Already a back-fire against Meade. I cannot believe that his heart fainted, and that other generals kept him from breaking before the enemy. But Meade is the man of their own kith and kin, and they ought to have known him.

It is now so difficult to disentangle truth from lies, from stories and from intrigue. It will not do, however, to uphold Hooker—it will not do. Hooker is a brilliant fighter, but was and always will be stunned when in command of an army. It is a crime to put up Hooker as a captain.

Somebody put in the head of the patriotic but mercurial Senator Wilson that the terrible onslaught of the rebel columns is not the result of their having adopted European, continental tactics, but that the rebels are formidable because they have adopted the Indian mode of warfare. God forgive him who thus confused my friend's understanding! Indian tactics or warfare for masses of forty, fifty, or one hundred thousand men!

I learn that Christ-Seward wishes to force the hoary, but brave, steady, and not at all fogyish Neptune Welles, to recognize to Spain or Cuba, or to somebody else and to all the world, an extension of the maritime league. It is excellent. Such extension is altogether advantageous to the maritime neutrals—all of them, Russia excepted, our covert or open ill-wishers.

Mr. Seward, as a good, scriptural Christian, minds not an offense, and is not rancorous. The Imperial Decembriseur, and all the imperialist liveried lackeys, look with contempt on the cause of the people, side with secessionists, with copperheads, etc., etc., and Mr. Seward insists on giving a license for the exportation of tobacco bought in Richmond for French accounts. Again Neptune defends the country's honor and interests.

In proportion as the presidential electioneering season approaches, Mr. Seward repeatedly and repeatedly attempts to impress upon the people's mind that he will not accept from the nation any high reward for his services. Well, it is not cunning—as by this time Mr. Seward ought to have found in what estimation he is held by nine-tenths of the people.

This is all that I caught in one day, after several days' interruption.

July 9.—Lee retreats towards the Potomac. If they let him recross there, our shame is nameless. Will Meade be after Lee l'épée dans les reins.

Halleckiana, minus. Nobody in Washington, not even the head-quarters, has any notion or idea what means Lee has to recross the Potomac.

Halleckiana, plus. I am told that Halleck refused to telegraph to Meade Mr. Lincoln's strategical conceptions.

July 9.—Chewing and spitting paramount here, require incalculable numbers of spittoons. The lickspittles outnumber the spittoons.

July 10.—The politicians already begin to broadly play their game. I use the sacramental expressions. What a disgusting monstrosity is a thorough politician! Not even a eunuch! There is nothing in a politician to be emasculated: no mind, no heart, no manhood. In what a galere I got—not by personal contact—but by intellectually observing the worms on the body politic of my—at any rate heartily adopted—country.

July 11.—Repeatedly and repeatedly certain newspaper correspondents announce to the world that Senator Sumner exercises considerable influence on the supreme power. All things considered, I wish it may be so, but I see it is not. Sumner's influence ought to have produced some palpable results. I see none.

The international maritime complications are watched and defeated by Welles.

Drapez vous, messieurs, drapez vous—in the statesman toga, history and truth will take it off from your shoulders.

July 12.—Mr. Seward is very ardently at work—Weed marshaling Seward—to reconstruct slavery and Union, to give a very large if not a general amnesty to the rebels, to shake hands with them, in pursuance of the Mercier-Richmond programme, and to be carried into the White House on the shoulders of the grateful Union-saviours, Copperheads, and blood-stained traitors. The Herald, the World, the National Intelligencer and others of that creed will sing gloria in excelsis to Seward.

July 13.—What is Meade doing? It is exciting to know why a blow is not yet dealt on the head of retreating rebels. Or is it that though West Point generals—on both sides—tolerably understand how to fight a battle, they subside when the finishing stroke is to be dealt. Oh for a general who understands how to manœuvre against the enemy!!!

I hear from a very reliable source, that during the excitement brewing before the day of Gettysburgh, the honorable Post Master General by a special biped message insinuated to the honorable governor of New York that the governor may ask the removal of Stanton for the safety of the country and of patriots of the Postmaster's and the governor's species.

July 13.—Besides what Meade has in hand, there must be a considerable number of troops in Baltimore, in Fortress Monroe and the volunteer militia. Why not, Lincoln-Halleck! mass them on the south side of the Potomac under such generals as Heintzelman, Sigel, etc., and take the enemy between two fires?

July 14.—Bloody riots in New York. The teaching of the Woods, of their former hireling, the World, and of those who pay that offal now. Seymour's democracy; mob, pillage, massacre.

July 14.—Lincoln has nominated so many Major-Generals who are relieved from duty, so many of them, that the Major-Generals ought to be formed into a squadron, and, Halleck at the head, McClellan at the tail, make them charge on Lee's centre. In such a way the major-generals would be some use.

July 14.—I meet many who attempt to exculpate Mr. Seward from this or that untruth which he is accused having told to the President. Such Seward's men often contradict not the fact, but attempt to insinuate that somebody else might have told it. To all this I answer with the Roman Prætor:

July 14.—Grant has overpowered men, soil—and elements. Grant, Porter, Farragut, and their men overpowered land and waters. They overpowered the Mississippi, hear: the Mississippi's and its mighty affluents as the Yazoo, the Red River, and others. McClellan caved in before a brook, as the Chickahominy. McClellan had the most gigantic resources in men and material ever put in the hands of a commander, and caved in. O, worshippers of heavy incapacity, take and digest it if you can.

July 16.—Lee re-crossed the Potomac! Thundering storms, rising waters and about one hundred and fifty thousand at his heels! What a general! And our brave soldiers again baffled, almost dishonored by domestic, know-nothing generalship. We have lost the occasion to crush three-fourths of the rebellion. But where is the responsibility? Foul work somewhere, but, as always, it will be nobody's fault.

July 15.—Stanton in rage and despair. Riots everywhere. All these riots must be the result of a skillfully laid mine. They coincide with the invasion by the rebels. At the best, these riots are generated by Fourth of July Seymourite speeches and by the long uninterrupted series of incendiary articles in New York papers, like World, etc., and in Boston, where emasculated parasites as Hilliard, a Cain Curtis etc., soothingly tried their hands to disgrace their city and to mislead the people. All the Lincoln-Seward-Halleck actions cannot excuse these riots and their matricidal, secret inciters.

July 15.—The Administration ought to recall Wool and put Butler in New York. Butler understands how to deal with riotous traitors.

July 15.—Good news from Banks. Now he comes out and will recover the confidence of all good men.

July 15.—If it is true that Meade convoked a council of war, and that the generals decided not to attack Lee, then whoever voted and decided so, ought, at the best, to be sent to the hospital of mental invalids, and the army put in the hands of fighting men. Lee's escape will henceforth occupy the cardinal place in the annals of disgraceful generalships of the Potomac army.

July 16.—One of the truest men and citizens in this country, George Forbes, of Milton Hill, returned from England. Forbes says that aristocracy and the commercial classes (with few exceptions) are generally against us. But the people at large are on our side.

Oh! that some method may be found to separate the interests of the good and noble English people, from the interests of the other classes; then to have intercourse only with the people; and towards the other English fulfil:

and that not one of those lords, lordlings, of inborn snobs and flunkeys, that not one of that English social sham may ever be allowed to tread the sacred American soil. And if such an Englishman ever touches these shores, then be he treated as leprous, and as carrying in him the most contagious plague, and let the house of any American that shall be opened to such an Englishman, be torn down and burned, and its ashes scattered to the winds; and the curse of the people upon any American harboring those snobbish upstarts of liberty.

July 16.—The incendiaries and murderers in New York cheered McClellan and came to his house. Bravo! Can, now, any honest man who is not an idiot, doubt where are the main springs and the animus of those New York blood-thirsty miscreants, and who are those of whose hearts McClellan got hold? What a nice Copperhead combination for saving the Union. Very likely Seymour, Dictator or President, McClellan Commander-in-chief, or Secretary of War, some of the Woods or Duncans or Barlows in the Treasury, their hireling any Marble for Foreign Affairs, and with them some others from among the favorites of the New York blood-thirsty incendiaries.

I read in one of the New York poison-dealers, alias Copperhead newspapers, that McClellanites was ruined by politicians. So-called honest, but idiotic conservatives sanctimoniously repeat that lie. It was McClellan, who, inspired by Barlow, by the Herald and by his aristocratic West Point pro-slavery friends, introduced democratic politics into the army at a time when the army was yet in an embryo state, already in September and October, 1861. O, impudent liars! history will nail your names to the gallows, together with the name of your fetish and of his military tail.

July 16.—In that fated, cursed council of war which allowed Lee to escape, my patriot Wadsworth was the most decided, the most out-spoken in favor of attacking Lee. Wadsworth never fails where honor and patriotism are to be sustained. Warren with Wadsworth. So Humphries, Pleasanton and Howard. Those names ought to coruscate as the purest light of patriotism for future generations. Meade's vote is of no account. He, the commander, ought to have acted up to his vote. If only Meade had imitated Radetzky. In 1849 after the denunciation of the Armistice of Milan, Radetzky called a council of war to decide whether the Po was to be crossed and Piedmont invaded. All the best Austrian generals—Hesse with them, voted against the proposition. Radetzky quietly listened, then rose and give orders to cross immediately.

The result was the battle of Novara and the temporary humiliation of the house of Savoy. That was a model for Meade. And this General French who advised to entrench! To entrench in pursuit of a retreating enemy! This French honors West Point and engineering. The generals who voted to entrench and not to attack Lee, and Meade with them, they can never, never retrieve. Whatever be their future or eventual success it will not heal the wound given to the country by thus allowing Lee to escape. O, God! O, God!

Such Frenches and others asserted that "Lee will attack before he crosses." Oh what Marses! Lee's position at Williamsport was on heights, etc., etc., assert those braves.

When a country is hilly and undulating there will always be found one point or hill commanding the others. I shall risk my head on the fact, that around Lee's entrenchments at Williamsport, there exist other elevations which command Williamsport, and are within artillery distance. Natura semper sibi consona. I am sure that better positions than that selected by Lee could easily have been occupied by our troops or artillery. The same must have been the case at Hagerstown. And if the generals were afraid to fight Lee's whole army they ought to have more vigilantly watched his crossing. There was a time when a part only of the rebel army was facing us, and at least this part ought to have been attacked and crippled, if not destroyed. Sound common sense teaches it. But it seems that no will to fight Lee, or to impede his safe recrossing, no such will animated the majority of the council of war. It seems that some of the West Point nurslings are still awe-struck at the sight of their slavocratic former companions, as they were at the time of their studies at West Point.

I was told by an officer coming from the army that the soldiers are exasperated. The soldiers say that the generals did not wish to destroy Lee's army and finish the rebellion, because their "stars were to set down." Who knows how far the soldiers are right?

July 17.—In New York the unterrified democracy went to arson and murder, hand in hand with the immense majority of Irishry. Meagher, Nugent, Corcoran and thousands like you, are exceptions. The O'Connors, O'Gormans, etc., are the unterrified. For these bloody saturnalia the wedding was consecrated by the Iro-Roman priesthood. As the unterrified Democrats pollute the sacred name of genuine Democracy, so the Irishry stain even the Catholic confession. The Iro-Roman Church in this country is not even a Roman-Catholic end. This Iro-Romanism here is a mixture of cunning, ignorance, brutality and extortion. A European Roman-Catholic at once finds out the difference in the spirit, and even to a certain extent, in the form. The incendiaries and murderers in the New York riots are the nurslings and disciples of the Iro-Roman clergy and the Iro-hierarchy.

July 17.—Mr. Lincoln ought to dismiss every general who voted against fighting; dismiss Meade for not understanding his power as commander of an army, and give the places to such Howards, Warrens, Pleasantons, Humphreys, Wadsworths, and all others, generals, colonels, etc. who clamorously asked an order for attack. If the army shall depend upon such generals who let Lee escape, then lay down arms, and drag not the people's children to a slaughter house.

To excuse the generals, it is asserted that at Chancellorsville Lee has allowed to Hooker to recross the river without annoying us, which Lee could easily do, and damage us considerably. Well! are our Generals to carry on a mere war of civilities? If Lee committed a fault, are you, gentlemen, in duty bound to imitate his mistakes? Imitation for imitation, then rather imitate Lee's several splendid manœuvring and tactics.

July 17.—I learn that the deep-dyed Copperheads and slavery-saviours do not consider Seymour of New York safe enough. They turn now to a certain Seymour in Connecticut. It seems that the Connecticut Seymour still more hates human rights, self-government, light and progress, and is a still more ardent lickspittle of slavocracy, of barbarism, and of the slave-driving whip.

July 18.—Splendid Chase urged Wadsworth to go to Florida and organize that country—very likely to prepare votes for Chase's presidency. It is not such high-toned men as Wadsworth who become tools of schemers.

Again rumors say that Stanton joined the scheme of Lincoln's re-election. As far as I can judge, Stanton's cardinal aim is to crush the rebellion.

July 18.—The greatest glory for Wadsworth is that the majority against him in the last November elections is now murdering and arsoning New York. All of them are unterrified, hard shell democrats, and cheer McClellan. These murderers are the "friends" of Seymour—they are the pets of that World, itself below the offal of hell—they are the "gentlemen" incendiaries of H. E. the Archbishop Hughes. On your head, most eminent Archbishop, is the whole responsibility. These "gentlemen" are brought up, Christianized and moralized under your care and direction, and under that of your tonsured crew. The "gentlemen" murderers are your herd, O most eminent shepherd! You ought to have and you could have stopped the rioters. And now your stola is a halter and your pallium gored with blood, otherwise innocent as is the blood of the lamb incensed on the altar of Saint Agnes in Rome.

Mr. Seward strongly opposed the appointment of General Butler to New York. Mr. Seward wished no harm to the "gentlemen" of his dear friend the Most Eminent Archbishop, and to the select ones who helped him to defeat Wadsworth.

July 19.—Difficult will be the task of the historian of these episodes of riots, as well as of the whole civil war. If gifted with the sacred spark, the future historian must carefully disentangle the various agencies and forces in this convulsion. Some such agencies are—

a The righteousness of the cause of the North, defending civilization, justice, humanity.

b The devotion, the self-sacrifice of the people.

c The littleness, helplessness, selfishness, cunning, heartlessness, empty-headedness, narrow-mindedness of the various leaders.

d The plague of politicians.

e The untiring efforts of the heathen, that is, of the Northern worshippers of the slavocrat and of his whip, efforts to uphold and save their idol.

f The fatal influence of the press. The republican or patriot press neither sufficiently vigilant, nor clear-sighted, nor intelligent, nor undaunted; not reinvigorated by new, young agencies; the bad press reckless, unprincipled, without honor and conscience, but bold, ferocious in its lies, and sacrificing all that is noble, human and pure to the idol of slavery.

July 19.—The more details about the shame of Hagerstown and of Williamsport, the more it rends heart and mind. I saw many soldiers and officers, sick, wounded and healthy. Their accounts agree, and cut to the quick. Our army was flushed with victory, craving for fight, and in a state of enthusiastic exaltation. But our generals were not therein in communion with the officers, with the rank and file. Enthusiasm! this highest and most powerful element to secure victory, and on which rely all the true captains; enthusiasm, that made invincible the phalanx of Alexander; invincible Cæsar's legions and Napoleon's columns; enthusiasm was of no account for the generals in council. O Meade! better were it for you if your council was held among, or with the soldiers.

The Rebel army was demoralized, as a retreating army always is; no doubt exists concerning a partial, at least, disorganization of the rebels. But Lee and his generals understood how to make a bold show, and a bold, menacing front, with what was not yet disorganized, and our generals caved in, in the council.

This July 19th is heavy, dark and gloomy.... I wish it were all over.

July 19.—Thurlow Weed puffs Stanton and patronises him. O, God! It is a terrible blow to Stanton. How, now, can one have confidence in Stanton's manhood. Are contracts at the bottom of the puff, or is it only one of Weed's tricks to defile and to ruin Stanton?

July 20.—It is almost humiliating to witness how mongrels and pigmies attempt to rob the people of their due glory, how they attempt to absorb to their own credit what the pitiless pressure of events forced upon them. All of them limped after events as lame ducks in mud; not one foresaw any thing, not one understood the to-day. Neither emancipation nor the transformation of slave into free states, are of your special, individual work, O, great men; but you strut now.

Some say that the generals who let Lee off, intended not to humiliate their former chief and pet McClellan.

July 20.—Cavalry wanted. Stables and corrals filled with horses, but no saddles. No saddles in this most industrious country! No brains in the Quartermasters or in those to whom it belongs. And perhaps no will, and perhaps no honesty. No saddles! Oh! I am sure it is nobody's fault; no workmen are to be found, and no leather, and no men to look after the country's good. That is the rub.

July 20.—Captain Collins, commanding a United States man-of-war, captures an English blockade-runner near an isolated shoal somewhere in the vicinity of Bermuda. England asserts that the shoal is a shore, and that the maritime league is violated. Mr. Seward at once yields, Neptune defends as he always does, the rights of the national Tritons, and of the national flag. The supreme power sides with Seward, and an order is given to reprimand Collins or something like it: it is done, and the prize-court decides that Captain Collins has made a lawful capture. I hope Collins will be consoled, and light his segar with the reprimand.

The future historian will duly ponder and establish Mr. Seward's claims to the salvage of the country.

July 20.—From all that I learn, Meade has a better and larger army than Lee; oh, may only Meade establish that he has the biggest brains of the two.

July 20.—From time to time, I read the various statutes issued by the last Congress, and am strengthened in my opinion that Congress served the people well. The various statutes are the triumph of legislation. They are clear, precise, well-worded results of patriotic, devoted, far-seeing and undaunted minds and brains. All glory to the majority of the Thirty-seventh Congress!

July 21.—A manly and patriotic letter from James T. Brady is published in the papers. Such Democrats, Irishmen and lawyers, like Brady, honor the party, the nationality, and the profession.

July 21.—A mystery surrounds the appointment of Grant to the command of the fated Potomac army. Yes and no say the helmsmen. The truth seems to be, it was offered to Grant, and he respectfully refused to accept it. If so, it is an evidence in favor of Grant. To give up glory and devoted companions in arms, to give all this up for the sake of running into the unknown, and into the jaws of the still breathing McClellanism, and into the vicinity of the central telegraphic station! Grant believes in volunteers; and for this reason it is to be regretted that he refused to correct the West Point notions.

July 21.—The draft occasions much bad blood, and evokes violent dissatisfaction. The draft is a dire necessity; but it could have been avoided if time, men, and the people's enthusiasm had not been so sacrilegiously wasted. The three hundred dollar clause is not a happy invention, and its omission would have given a better character to that law.

July 21.—If the New York traitors succeed in preventing the draft, then they will riot against taxes; after breaking down the taxes, they will riot against the greenbacks, against the emancipation, and finally force the reconstruction of the Union with the murderous rebel chiefs in the senatorial chairs, according to the Seward-Mercier-Richmond programme. Any one can see in the Cain-Copperhead newspapers of New York, of Boston, of Philadelphia, and in the letters and speeches of those matricides, what are their aims, and how their plans are laid out.

July 21.—Again I am most positively assured that some time ago a friendly offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between W. H. Seward and Edwin Stanton. The high powers were represented by Thurlow Weed and Morgan for Seward, and the virtuous, lachrymose, white-cravated Whiting acted for Stanton. I was told that this alliance drove Watson, (Assistant Secretary,) from the War Department. This would be infernal, if true. I know that no Weed whatever could approach such a man as Watson; but Watson assured me that he returns back, and I cannot believe that Stanton could consent to be thus sold.

July 22.—Honorable, virtuous, tear-shedding, jockey-dressing Whiting wanted to make a trip to Europe. Sharp and acute, the great expounder found out at once that Mr. Seward is one of the greatest and noblest patriots of all times. Reward followed. Whiting goes to Europe on a special mission—to dine, if he is invited, with all the great and small men to whom Mr. Adams or Mr. Dayton may introduce him, and to convince everybody in Europe that the Sewards, the Whitings, &c., are the crème de la crème of the American people. Vive la bagatelle.

July 22.—How putrescent is all around! But it is not the nation, not the people. And as the sun raises above the darkest and heaviest vapors, so in America the spirit of mankind, incarnated in and animating the people, towers above the filth of politicians, of cabinet-makers, of presidential-peddlers, etc. Look to the masses to find consolation. How splendidly acts Massachusetts and New England's sons! And what free State is not New England's son? The youth of Massachusetts are almost all in the field—the rich and the poor, those of the best social standing, and of the genuine good blood and standing; scholars and mechanics, all of them shouldered the musket.

July 23.—How strangely and how slowly Meade manœuvres! It looks McClellan-like. O, God of battles, warm and inspire Meade!

July 23.—Only boys in the corps of invalids. It has its good. For scores of years to come, these invalids will be the living legend of this treasonable, matricidal rebellion, and of the atrocious misconduct of our helmsmen. I hope that when returned home, these invalids will be as many extirpators of all kinds of Weeds in their respective townships and villages. They will become the lights of the new era.

July 23.—Were it not for the murdered, these New York riots could be considered welcome. The rioting cannibals, and their prompters and defenders showed their hands. No one in his senses can now doubt how heartily and devotedly Jeff Davis was served by his hirelings among the Copperhead leaders and among the New York Copperhead press. The cannibals cheered for McClellan, and the Administration has neither enough courage nor self respect to put that fetish on the retired list.

In the old, flourishing times of Romanism and papacy, such a Most Eminent Hughes would long ago have been suspended by the Holy See. The Most Eminent's standing among the continental European Episcopacy is not eminent at all, whatever be Mr. Seward's opinion. The Most Eminent is a curious observer of the canons, of the papal bulls, and of other clerical and episcopal paraphernalia. The spirit animating the Most Eminent is not the spirit of the Roman Sapienzia. I well recollect what I heard lectured in that Roman papal university.

July 24.—As a dark and ominous cloud, Lee with his army hovers around Washington, keeps the Shenandoah valley, and may again cross over to the Cumberland valley. It seems that the generals whose council-of-war allowed Lee to recross the river unhurt, believed that Lee with all speed would run to Richmond; and now they hang to his brow and eye.

The crime of Williamsport bears fruit. Never, never in this or in the other life, can the perpetrators of the Williamsport crime atone for it.

It may come that the western armies and generals will bring the civil war to an end, the Potomac army all the time marching and countermarching between the Potomac and the Rappahannock. And such a splendid army, such heroic soldiers and officers, to be sacrificed to the ignorant stubbornness of sham military science!

July 25.—I positively learn that Gilmore has scarcely ten thousand men, infantry, and is to storm the various forts and defenses around the Charleston harbor. If Gilmore succeeds, then it is a wonder. But in sound valuation, Gilmore has not men enough to organize columns of attack so that the one shall follow the other within a short, very short supporting distance. And the losses will almost hourly reduce Gilmore's small force. I dread repulse and heavy losses. Some one at the head-quarters deserves to be quartered for such a distribution of troops. With the immense resources and means of transportation, it is so easy to send twenty thousand troops to Gilmore, attack, make short work of it, and then carry the troops back to where they belonged. But to concentrate and act in masses is not the credo of the—not yet quartered—head-quarters.

July 26.—Old—but not slow—Welles again gives to Seward a lesson of good-behavior, of sound sense, and of mastery of international laws. The prize courts side with Welles. Because Neptune has a white wig and beard, he is considered slow, when in reality he is active, unflinching, and progressive.

July 26.—O, could I only exclaim, Exegi monumentum aere perennius, to the noble, the patriotic, and the good, as well as to the helpless, the selfish, and the counterfeits.

July 27.—Philadelphia. Flags in all the streets, volunteers parading and drilling. Prosperity, activity and devotion permeate the country. So at least I am led to believe. All this is so refreshing, after witnessing in Washington such strenuous efforts how not to do it.

Bad news. I learn that Gilmore is repulsed. When the forlorn hope entered Fort Wagner, no support promptly came, and the heroes, black and white, were massacred or expelled. Gilmore ought to have been more cautious, and not to have undertaken an operation which was on its outside stamped with impossibility. Perhaps Gilmore obeyed peremptory orders. Who gave them?

Lee's army escapes through Chester Gap, and thus we have not cut the rebels from Richmond, and now they are ahead of us. Again out-manœuvred! and nobody's fault, only the campaign prolonged ad infinitum. Perhaps it is in the programme!

July 28.—Philadelphia. The petty, narrow, school conceit imbibed in the West Point nursery, is the stumbling-block barring everywhere the expansion of a healthy and vigorous activity. I listened to the heaviest absurdities and fogyism on military affairs oracularly preached by one of the great West Pointers on duty here.

July 31.—Long Branch. Away from personal contact, even from the view of politicians, of plotters, of lickspittles. How refreshing, how invigorating, how soothing!

Mr. Seward, with a due tail, visits Fortress Monroe. What for? Is it to organize some underground road to reunion on the Mercier-Seward-Richmond programme?

One well-informed writes me that the last programme of Lincoln, Halleck and Meade is, that the army of the Potomac is to keep Lee at bay, but not to attack. If true, how well designed to give time to Lee to do what he likes, to reorganize, to send away his troops where he may please, to call them back—in one word to be fully at his ease on our account. Will this country ever escape the tutorship of sham science?

July 31.—Long Branch. Seward's concession policy towards France bears fruit in Mexico. Of course the Decembriseur outwitted the Weed-Albany-Auburn politician statesman. But it is not the ignorant foreign policy which strengthened and strengthens the French policy in Mexico. It is the blunders, the tergiversations, the gropings, and the crimes of our internal domestic policy, which, protracting the war, allows the French conspirator to murder the Mexicans.

July 31. L. B.—So the Decembriseur amuses himself in creating an Imperial throne in Mexico for some European princely idiot or intriguer. All right. I have confidence in the Mexicans. The future Emperor, even if established for some time on the cushion of treason propped by French bayonets, that manikin before short or long will be Iturbidised. Further: I have confidence in the French people. The upper crust is pestilential. Bonapartists, lickspittles, lackeys and incarnations of all imaginary corruptions compose that upper crust. But I would bet a fortune, had I one, that in the course of the next five years, the Decembriseur and his Prince Imperial will be visible at Barnum's, and that some shoddy grandee from 5th Avenue, will issue cards inviting to meet the Empress Eugénie.

AUGUST, 1863.

Stanton — Twenty Thousand — Canadians — Peterhoff — Coffey — Initiation — Electioneering — Reports — Grant — McClellan — Belligerent Rights — Menagerie — Watson — Jury — Democrats — Bristles — "Where is Stanton?" — "Fight the monster" — Chasiana — Luminaries — Ballistic — Political Economy, etc., etc., etc.

August 2. Long Branch.—The organs of all shades and of all gradations of ill-wishers to the cause of the North, and to that of Emancipation, the secret friends of Jeff Davis, and the open supporters of McClellan are untiring in their open, slanderous, treacherous accusations of Stanton; others spread sanctimoniously perfidious suggestions against the Secretary of War, and so does the National Intelligencer, this foremost Whig-Conservative, double or treble-faced organ. Stanton is called to account for all mishaps, mismanagement, disasters and disgraces which befall our armies between the Rio Grande and the Potomac. Such accusations, to a certain degree, could be justified if the Secretary of War were clothed with the same powers, and therefore with the same responsibilities as is the case in European governments.

But every one knows that here the war machinery is very complicated, because wheels turn within wheels. The Secretary of War is not alone to answer and he is not exclusively responsible for the appointment of good, middling, or wholly bad generals and commanders. Every one knows it. Stanton may have all the possible shortcomings and faults with which his enemies so richly clothe him; one thing is certain, that Stanton advocated and always advocates fighting, and Stanton furnishes the generals and commanders with all means and resources at the country's and the department's disposition. If many respectable men are to be trusted, Stanton never interferes with intrinsic military operations, never orders or insinuates, or dictates to the commanders of our armies where and in what way they are to get at the enemy and to fight him. As far as I know Stanton keeps aloof from strategy.

Stanton is insincere and untruthful, say his enemies. Granted. I never found a man in power to be otherwise in personal questions or relations. It is almost impossible for the power-holders to be sincere and truthful.

But Stanton is truthful and sincere to the cause, and that is all that I want from him. Stanton's alleged malice against McClellan had the noblest and the most patriotic sources, which, of course, could not be understood or appreciated by Stanton's revilers.

The organs of treason and of infamy refer always to McClellan. O race, knitted of the devils excrements mixed with his saliva, [see Talleyrand about Thiers] your treason is only equal to your impudence and ignorance. If in February, 1862, Stanton had not urged McClellan to move, probably the Potomac Army would have spent all the year in its tents before Washington. McClellan's henchmen and minions thrusted and still thrust the grossest lies down the throat of a certain public, eager to gulp slander as sugar plums. McClellan's stupidity at Yorktown and in the Chickahominy is vindicated by his crew with the following counter accusation: that all disasters have been generated because McDowell with his twenty thousand men did not join McClellan. If McClellan had in him the soldiership of a non-commissioned officer, on his knees he ought to implore his crew not to expose him in this way. When a general has in hand about one hundred and ten thousand men, as McClellan had on entering the peninsula, and accomplishes nothing, then it is a proof that he, the general, is wholly unable and ignorant how to handle large masses. If McClellan could not manage one hundred thousand men, still less would he have been able to manage the twenty thousand more of McDowell's corps.

The stupidity of attempting to invest Richmond is beyond words, and for such an operation several hundred thousand men would have been necessary. [Spoke of it in Vol. I.] If twenty thousand men arrive not at a certain day or hour when a battle is raging, most surely this failure may occasion a defeat—Grouchy at Waterloo—but in McClellan's Chickahominy operations, twenty thousand men more would have served only still more plainly to expose his incapacity, and to be a prey to fevers and diseases.

The bulk of the rebel army in Richmond was always less numerous than McClellan's; the rebels always understood to have more troops than had McClellan when they attacked him. During that whole cursed and ignominious (for McClellan) Chickahominy campaign, McClellan never fought at once more of his men than about thirty thousand. It was not the absence of twenty thousand men that prevented a commander of one hundred thousand from engaging more of his troops, and for quickly supporting such corps as were attacked by the enemy.

August 3: L. B.—The Colonists, that is, the appendixes of England, as the Canadians, the Nova Scotians, and of any other colonial dignity and name, together with their great statesmen, certain Howes and Johnsons, etc. etc. etc. agitate; they are in trances like little fish out of water. They find it so pleasant to seize an occasion to look like something great. Poor frogs! trying to blow themselves into leviathans. Their whelpish snarling at the North reminds one of little curs snarling at a mastiff. How can these colonists imagine that a royal prince of England could reside among something which is as indefinite as are colonists—something neither fish nor flesh.

August 3.—The Evening Post contains a letter on the difference between the behavior of Union men in Missouri during the treasonable riots in St. Louis in the Spring of 1861, and the conduct of the Union men in New York during the recent riots. But the Saint Louis patriot is silent—has forgotten the immortal Lyons who saved that city and its patriots, who saved Missouri. (General Scott insisted upon courtmartialing Lyons.)

Also, have you already forgotten the foremost among heroes and patriots, and whose loss is more telling now than it was in 1861. Forgotten one of the purest and noblest victims of Washington blindness, of General Scott's unmilitary policy and conduct. Forgotten the true son of the people? But O Lyons! thy name will be venerated by coming generations.

August 4: L. B.—The Cliques.

a The worst, and the womb of all evils is the Weed-Seward clique. Around it group contractors, jobbers, shoddy, and all kinds of other social impurities.

b The ambitious, intriguing, selfish, narrow-minded West Point clique.

c The not brave, not patriotic, and freedom-hating, unintelligent McClellan clique.

d Copperheads of various hues and gradations.

Cliques a, b, and c, generated and fostered Copperheads, and facilitated their expansion.

e Imbeciles, lickspittles, politicians, etc.

f The Lincolnites, closely intertwined with the genus e; the Blair men, etc.

g The partisans of Chase. This clique is the most variously and most curiously composed. Honest imbeciles, makers of phrases, rhetors, heavy and narrow-minded, office-hunters, office expectants, politicians, contractors, admirers of pompousness and of would-be radicalism, all who turn round and round, and see not beyond their noses, etc.

Several minor cliques exist, but deserve not to be mentioned. Behind these mud-hills rises the true people, as the Himalayas rise above the plains of Asia.

August 4.—Why could not Everett, that good and true patriot, preside over our relations with Europe; or why is that thorough American statesman, Governor Marcy, dead! How different, how respected, how truly American would have been the character of our relations with Europe! No prophecies, no lies would have been told, no gross ignorance displayed!

August 4. L. B.—In the columns of the Times a friend of Halleck tries to make a great man of the General-in-chief. Halleck repudiates Burnside and Hooker, but claims the victory at Gettysburgh, because Meade, being a good disciplinarian, executed Halleck's orders. So from his room in G street Washington, Halleck directed the repulse of the furiously attacking columns. Bravo! more bravo as no telegraph connects Washington with Gettysburgh!

Meade being a good disciplinarian, the crime of Williamsport falls upon Halleck; the commander-in-chief is the more responsible, as the crime was perpetrated under his nose; about four hours' drive could have brought him to our army, and then Halleck in person could have directed the attack upon the enemy.

From all that transpires about Williamsport one must conclude that Lee must have known that he would not be seriously attacked, and that he was not much afraid of the combined disciplinarian generalship.

Further: Halleck claims for himself Grant's success, because Grant obeyed orders, and Rosecrans did the same. How astonishing, therefore, that their campaigns ended in victories and not in such shame as Halleck at Corinth, in 1862. Rosecrans was inspired by telegraph to change defeat into victory; the indomitable Grant received by telegraph the fertility of resources shown by him at Vicksburgh. Oh! Halleck! you cannot succeed in thus belittling the two heroes, and you may tell your little story to the marines.

August 4.—The Proclamation on retaliation is a well-written document; but like all Mr. Lincoln's acts it is done almost too late, only when the poor President was so cornered by events, that shifting and escape became impossible. If I am well informed Stanton long ago demanded such a Proclamation, but Lincoln's familiar demons prevented it. Nevertheless Lincoln will be credited for what intrinsically is not his.

August 5: L. B.—Thomas—not Paul—Lincoln's pet, returns to the Mississippi to organise Africo-American regiments. For six months they organize, organize and have not yet fifteen thousand in field. If Stanton had been left alone, we would have to-day in battle order at least fifty thousand Africo-Americans.

August 5: L. B.—All computed together, among all Western Continental European nations, the Germans, both here and in Germany, behave the best towards the North. I mean the genuine German people. Thinkers and rationalists are seldom, if ever, found on the wrong side. I rejoice to see the Germans behave so nobly.

August 5.—The Peterhoff condemned, notwithstanding all the efforts to the contrary of our brilliant, versatile and highly erudite in international laws Secretary of state. But Mr. Seward will not understand the lesson. How could he?

August 5: L. B.—At least for the fiftieth time, Seward insinuates to the public that we are on the eve of a breach with England—but Seward will prevent it. Oh, Oh! Yes, O Seward! when backed by the iron clads and by twenty-two millions of a brave and stubborn people!

August 5: L. B.—Poor Stanton, I pity him! After Weed comes the "little villain," with his puffs. Happily, the World abuses Stanton, and this alone makes up even for the applause of Weed and his consorts.

August 7: L. B.—Coffey, Assistant Attorney-General, published a legal, official opinion on maritime, commercial copperheadism; that is, when an American vessel, from an American port, is sent in ballast to a neutral port to load there, afterwards to run the blockade, Coffey proves it to be treason and criminality. The document is clear, logical, precise and not wordy: not in the style of the State Department logomachy. Why, O why cannot such younger men be at the head! Emancipation would have been carried out, slavery destroyed, the Union restored, rebels crushed, and the French murderers and imperial lackeys would cut very respectful capers to please a great people.

August 8: L. B.—I shudder as I pass in review what little is done at such an enormous expenditure of human limbs and of human life, not to speak of squandered time, labor and money.

It seems that the prevailing rule is to reach the smallest results at the greatest possible cost. General Scott, Seward and Lincoln early laid down that rule. McClellan, that quintessence of all unsoldierlike capacities, faithfully continued what was already inaugurated. Halleck almost perfected it; and so it became a chronic disease of the leading spirits in the Administration, Stanton and Welles excepted. That sacrilegious, murderous method and rule, at times was forcibly violated by Grant, by Rosecrans, by Banks, by the glorious Farragut, by Admiral Porter. The would-be statesmen either see nothing or do not wish to see what ill-disposed minds could consider to be an almost premeditated slaughter.

I know too well that every initiation is with sacrifice or blood. It is a law of progress, absolute, not made by man, but cut out for him by fate or providence. In a stream of his mother's life-blood man enters this world; by the blood of the Redeemer the Christian becomes initiated to another, called a better world. Sacrifice and blood prevail throughout the eons of the initiation of human societies and religions. Through sacrifice and blood the Reformation became a redeemer. Great results are reached at great cost. I am an atom in a generation which, to assert her deep, earnest convictions, never caved in before blood and sacrifice; a generation that has labored and still labors, spreads seed and begins to harvest; a generation which regrets nothing, and cheerfully takes the responsibility of its actions. And with all this, the men of convictions and of undaunted revolutionary courage in Europe, bestowed and bestow more care upon any unnecessary sacrifice of human life than I witness here. By heavens! Marat, Saint Just, Robespierre, could be considered lambs when compared with the faiseurs here. And Marat, Saint Just, and Robespierre were fanatics of ideas: here they are fanaticised by selfishness, intrigue, helplessness and imbecility.

August 9: L. B.—For the last few months men of sound and dispassionate judgment tried to convince me that there is somewhere, in high regions, a settled purpose to prolong the war until the next presidential election. I always disbelieved such assertions; but now, considering all this criminal sluggishness, I begin to believe in the existence of such a criminal purpose.

August 9: L. B.—All the open and secret Copperhead organs raise a shrill cry on account of what they pervert into McClellan's general Report of his unmilitary campaigns. When a commander is in the field, he is in duty bound, as soon as possible, that is, in the next few weeks, to send to his superior or to the Government, a Report of each of his military movements and operations. McClellan ought to have immediately made a Report to the Government after his bloodless victory at Centreville and Manassas; a victory crowned with maple trophies! Then McClellan ought to have sent another Report after the great success at Yorktown, and so on. Every period of his campaign ought to have been separately reported. It is done in all well organized governments and armies, and it is the duty of the staff of the army to prepare such periodical, successive Reports. Even if the sovereign himself takes the field, the staff of the army sends such Reports to the Secretary of War. Nobody stood in the way of McClellan's doing what it was his imperative duty to do, and to do immediately.

But it is unheard of that a commander during a year at the head of an army, should take another year to prepare his Report. No self-respecting government would allow such an insubordination, or accept such a tardy Report. If a government should act upon such a Report, it would be rather by dismissing from service, etc., the sluggish—if not worse—commander.

The so-called "McClellan's Report," concocted by a board of choice Copperheads in New York, and of which the World's hireling was an amanuensis, that production is certainly an elaborate essay on McClellan's campaigns, is certainly bristling with afterthoughts and post facta, as pedestals for the fetish's altar. It must have on its face the mark of combination, but not of truth. Such a Report—not written on the spot, in the atmosphere of activity, not written by officers of the staff, not by the Chief-of-staff—such a Report cannot command or inspire any confidence; it has not, and ought not to have any worth in the Government's archives. McClellan may publish his memoirs, or essays, or anything else, and therein may shine this labor of a dasippus assisted by vipers.

August 11: L. B.—In Washington they seem to insist that Grant shall take the command of the Potomac Army. If Grant accepts, he will be a ruined man. Grant ought to have Pope in memory. Grant soon will see stained his glorious and matchless military record. He will not withstand the cliques and the underground intrigues of craving, selfish and unsatisfied ambitions.

If Halleck could only know what in a European army any tyro knows, Halleck would make Mr. Lincoln understand that such an appointment must produce confusion, as no regular staffs exist in our army. (I spoke somewhere about it.)

August 13: L. B.—Can it be possible that several from among the Republicans, honest leaders, gravitate towards Lincoln, and already begin to agitate for Lincoln's re-election? If it is so—if the people submit to such an imposition—O, then, genius of history, go in mourning!

August 13: L. B.—The Board appointed by Stanton to investigate into the condition of the Africo-Americans, has published its dissertation—very poor—in the shape of a Report. Stanton intended to do a good thing by appointing that Board. It did not turn out so well as Stanton expected. What is the use of expatiating—as do the three wise men in their Report—on certain psychological qualities and non-qualities of the Africo-American? The paramount question is how to organize the emancipated in their condition of freedom. When Stanton appointed that Board he wished to have elucidated, if not settled, the way and manner in which to deal with the new citizens or semi-citizens; but Stanton was the last man to look for an old psychological re-hash, without any social or moral signification whatever; a re-hash whose axioms and apothegms are, at least, a quarter of a century behind the scientific elucidations on races, on Africans, even on Anglo-Saxons.

August 15: L. B.—Weeks ago Grant sent his Report, embracing the various operations connected with the fall of Vicksburgh. Grant did not want a year to make a school-boy like composition, as did McClellan with his quill-holders. Every word of Grant's Report resounds with military spirit and simplicity. Grant has not to put truth on the rack and throw dust into people's eyes. Three cheers for McClellan! Grant has confidence in the volunteers; not so McClellan, who had only confidence in shams. Grant and his army, at the best, were the second sons of the Administration—not of the people; to the last day McClellan was the pet, the spoiled child, and as such he disgraced his parents, tutors, etc., and ruined his parent's house.

August 15.—A letter published by the Honorable W. Whiting, (who is now traveling,) occasions much noise. The letter is pointed and keen, but the writer knows mighty little about international laws. Almost a priori he recognizes in the rebels, as he says, "only the rights of belligerents." Only the rights of belligerents! Such rights are very ample, and for this reason they belong in their plenitude exclusively to absolutely independent nations. To recognize a priori such rights in the rebels, is equivalent to recognizing them as an independent nation. In pure and absolute principle of modern (not Roman) jus gentium, rebels have not only no belligerent rights, but not any rights at all. Rebels are ipso facto outlaws in full. Writers like Abbe Galiano, Vatel, etc., for the sake of humanity and expediency, recommend to the lawful sovereign to use mercy, to treat rebels in parte as belligerents, and not as a priori condemned criminals.

August 16: L. B.—Seward is to promenade the diplomats over the country. He is Barnum, the diplomats are the menagerie. Poor Lord Lyons. Very probably it is Seward's last rocket to draw upon himself the attention of the people.

August 16. L. B.—The probabilities of a rupture with France are upon the public mind. I still misbelieve it. I have not the slightest doubt that the Decembriseur is full of treachery towards the North, and that his Imperialist lackeys blow brimstone against the Northern principles. But are the French people so debased as to submit? We shall see. Let that crowned conspirator begin a war of treason against the North. Before long the French people will put an end to the war and to the Decembriseur.

August 16. L. B.—I learn that Watson has very gravely injured his health by labor, that is, by being the most faithful servant of the country and of its cause. I never, anywhere in my life, met a public officer so undaunted at his duties, so unassuming, so quiet as Watson, in his duties of Assistant Secretary of War, which are as thorny as can be imagined. Watson was, and I hope will be for the future, the terror of lobbyists, of bad contractors, of jobbers—in one word, the terror of all the leeches of the people's pocket. And it honors Stanton to have brought into his Department such a man as Watson. I heard and hear, and read a great many accusations against Stanton; but I never found any proofs which could virtually diminish my confidence. To use a classical, stupid, rhetorical figure: Stanton is not of antique mould. And who is now? But he is a sincere, devoted and ardent patriot; he broadly comprehends the task and the duty to save the country, and he sees clearly and distinctly the ways and means to reach the sacred aim. Stanton may have, and very many assert that he has, numerous bristles in his character, in his deportment. Let it be so. It is the worse for him, but not for the cause he serves.

August 16. L. B.—Are the people again to receive a President from the hand of intriguers, from politicians, or from honest imbeciles? If the people will stand it, then they deserve to be kept in leading strings by all that medley.

August 16. L. B.—Rosecrans wants mounted infantry. The men of the day, the men who understand and comprehend the exigencies, the necessities of the war, they pierce through the rotten crust of fogyism. That is promise and hope. The great organizers of the army—the McClellans and the Hallecks—could never have found out that mounted infantry is necessary, and will render good service. Mounted infantry was not considered a necessity in the West Point halls, and Jomini mentions it not. How should a Halleck do so?

August 17. L. B.—A defender of slavery, a Copperhead, and a traitor, differ so little from each other, that a microscope magnifying ten thousand times would not disclose the difference. A proslaveryist, a Copperhead, and a traitor, are the most perfect tres in unum.

August 18. L. B.—General Meade is absent from the army, and Humphreys, his chief-of-staff, is temporarily in command. I notice this fact as a proof that a more rational, intelligent comprehension prevails in the military service. A chief-of-staff is the only man to be the locum-tenens of the commander. At Williamsport Humphreys voted for fight. It would be well if Meade should not return to again take the command.

August 18.—A patriotic gentlewoman asked me why I write a diary? "To give conscientious evidence before the jury appointed by history."

August 20.—On the first day of the draft, I had occasion to visit New York. All was quiet. In Broadway and around the City Hall I saw less soldiers than I expected. The people are quiet; the true conspirators are thunderstruck. Before long, the names will be known of the genuine instigators of arson and of murder in July last. The tools are in the hands of justice, but the main spirits are hidden. Smart and keen wretches as are the leading Copperheads, they successfully screen their names; nevertheless before long their names will be nailed to the gallows. The World—which, for weeks and weeks, so devotedly, so ardently poisoned the minds, and thus prepared the way for any riot—the World was and is a tool in the hands of the hidden traitors. The World is a hireling, and does the work by order.

August 21. L. B.—The final destiny of the Potomac Army seems to be to keep Lee at bay but not to attack him. Oh! the disgraced soldiers and officers! Chickahominy, Antietam, Fredericksburgh, Gettysburgh, are the indestructible evidences of the mettle of the army, and of the poverty or total eclipse of generalship.

August 21.—Impressionable, excitable, wave-like agitated as are my dear American countrymen, they altogether forget the yesterday, and shout the last success. Further: the people cannot see clearly through the stultifying or the dirty dust blown in the peoples' eyes; 1st, by the politicians of all hues, from the Woods, Weeds, Forneys, to the Greeleys, by the simon-pures or the lobby-impures; 2d, by the press of all parties and shades of parties. The people may again make a mistake. Is not Lincoln hailed as the new Moses? as the man for the times, as the only one God sent to direct the people, and to grapple with the stern, earnest emergencies and perils? Emancipation is not Lincoln's, is not Sumner's, is not anybody's personal special work. The necessities, the emergencies of the times and of the hour did it. Their current drifted Mr. Lincoln irresistibly along, and to a shore where he must land or perish.