Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 Part 4

No ministry of foreign affairs in Europe would treat its agents in such a trifling manner, and, if done, a minister would resent it.

This mistake, or recklessness, is to be credited princ.i.p.ally to the internal chief, or director of the department, and not to the minister himself. By and by, the chief clerks, these routinists in the former coa.r.s.e traditions of the Democratic administrations, will learn and acquire better diplomatic and bureaucratic habits.

If one calls the attention of influential Americans to the mismanagement in the organization of the army; to the extraordinary way in which everything, as organization of brigades, and the inner service, the quartermaster's duty, is done, the general and inevitable answer is, "We are not military; we are young people; we have to learn." Granted; but instead of learning from the best, the latest, and most correct authorities, why stick to an obsolete, senile, musty, rotten, mean, and now-a-days impracticable routine, which is all-powerful in all relating to the army and to the war? The Americans may pay dear for thus reversing the rules of common sense.

General Scott directs from his sleeping room the movements of the two armies on the Potomac and in the Shenandoah valley. General Scott has given the order to advance. At least a strange way, to have the command of battle at a distance of thirty and one hundred miles, and stretched on his fauteuil. Marshal de Saxe, although deadly sick, was on the field at Fontenoy. What will be the result of this experimentalization, so contrary to sound reason?

Fighting at Bull Run. One o'clock, P. M. Good news. Gen. Scott says that although we were 40-100 in disadvantage, nevertheless his plans are successful-all goes as he arranged it-all as he foresaw it. Bravo! old man! If so, I make amende honorable of all that I said up to this minute. Two o'clock, P. M. General Scott, satisfied with the justness and success of his strategy and tactics-takes a nap.

Evening.-Battle lost; rout, panic. The army almost disbanded, in full run. So say the forerunners of the accursed news. Malediction! Malediction!

What a horrible night and day! rain and cold; stragglers and disbanded soldiers in every direction, and no order, n.o.body to gather the soldiers, or to take care of them.

As if there existed not any military or administrative authority in Washington! Under the eyes of the two commanders-in-chief! Oh, senility, imbecility, ignominy! In Europe, a commander of a city, or any other military authority whatever, who should behave in such a way, would be dismissed, nay, expelled, from military service. What I can gather is, that the enemy was in full retreat in the centre and on one flank, when he was reinforced by fresh troops, who outflanked and turned ours. If so, the panic can be explained. Even old veteran troops generally run when they are outflanked.

Johnston, whom Patterson permitted to slip, came to the rescue of Beauregard. So they say. It is en pet.i.t Waterloo, with Blucher-Johnston, and Grouchy-Patterson. But had Napoleon's power survived after Waterloo, Grouchy, his chief of the staff, and even Ney,[1] for the fault at Quatre-bras, would have been court-martialed and shot. Here these blind Americans will thank Scott and Patterson.

Others say that a bold charge of cavalry arrived on our rear, and threw in disorder the wagons and the baggage gang. That is nothing new; at the battle of Borodino some Cossacks, pouncing upon the French baggage, created a panic, which for a moment staggered Napoleon, and prevented him in time from reinforcing Ney and Davoust. But McDowell committed a fault in putting his baggage train, the ambulances excepted, on a road between the army and its reserves, which, in such a manner, came not in action. By and by I shall learn more about it.

The Congress has made a worse Bull Run than the soldiers. Not a single manly, heroic word to the nation and the army. As if unsuccess always was dishonor. This body groped its way, and was morally stunned by the blow; the would-be leaders more than the ma.s.s.

Suggested to Sumner to make, as the Romans did, a few stirring words on account of the defeat.

Some mean fellows in Congress, who never smelt powder, abused the soldiers. Those fellows would have been the first to run. Others, still worse, to show their abject flunkeyism to Scott, and to humbug the public at large about their intimacy with this fetish, make speeches in his defence. Scott broadly prepared the defeat, and now, through the mouths of flunkeys and spit-lickers,[2] he attempts to throw the fault on the thus called politicians.

The President telegraphed for McClellan, who in the West, showed rapidity of movement, the first and most necessary capacity for a commander. Young blood will be infused, and perhaps senility will be thrown overboard, or sent to the Museum of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tute.

At Bull Run the foreign regiments ran not, but covered the retreat. And Scott, and worse than he, Thomas, this black spot in the War Department, both are averse to, and when they can they humiliate, the foreigners. A member of Congress, in search of a friend, went for several miles up the stream of the fugitive army; great was his astonishment to hear spoken by the fugitives only the unmixed, pure Anglo-Saxon.

My friend, J. Wadsworth, behaved cool, brave, on the field, and was devoted to the wounded. Now, as always, he is the splendid type of a true man of the people.

Poor, unhappy McDowell! During the days when he prepared the army, he was well aware that an eventual success would be altogether attributed to Scott; but that he, McDowell, would be the scapegoat for the defeat. Already, when on Sunday morning the news of the first successes was known, Scott swallowed incense, and took the whole credit of it to himself. Now he accuses the politicians.

Once more. Scott himself prepared the defeat. Subsequent elucidation will justify this a.s.sertion. One thing is already certain: one of the reasons of the lost battle is the exhaustion of troops which fought-and the number here in Washington is more than 50,000 men. Only an imbecile would divide the forces in such a way as to throw half of it to attack a superior and entrenched enemy. But Scott wished to shape the great events of the country in accordance with his narrow, ossified brains, and with his peculiar patriotism; and he did the same in the conduct of the war.

I am sure some day or other it will come out that this immense fortification of Mana.s.sas is a similar humbug to the masked batteries; and Scott was the first to aggrandize these terrible national nightmares. Already many soldiers say that they did not see any fortifications. Very likely only small earthworks; if so, Scott ought to have known what was the position and the works of an enemy encamped about thirty miles from him. If he, Scott, was ignorant, then it shows his utter imbecility; if he knew that the fortifications were insignificant, and did not tell it to the troops, then he is worse than an incapable chief. Up to the present day, all the military leaders of ancient and modern times told their troops before a battle that the enemy is not much after all, and that the difficulties to overcome are rather insignificant. After the battle was won, everything became aggrandized. Here everybody, beginning with Scott, ardently rivalled how to scare and frighten the volunteers, by stories of the masked batteries of Mana.s.sas, with its several tiers of fortifications, the terrible superiority of the Southerners, etc., etc. In Europe such behavior would be called treason.

The administration and the influential men cannot realize that they must give up their old, stupid, musty routine. McClellan ought to be altogether independent of Scott; be untrammelled in his activity; have large powers; have direct action; and not refer to Scott. What is this wheel within a wheel? Instead of it, Scott, as by concession, cuts for McClellan a military department of six square miles. Oh, human stupidity, how difficult thou art to lift!

Scott will paralyze McClellan as he did Lyon and Butler. Scott always pushed on his spit-lickers, or favorites, rotten by old age. But Scott has pushed aside such men as Wool and Col. Smith; refused the services of many brave as Hooker and others, because they never belonged to his flunkeys.

Send to McClellan a plan for the reorganization of the army.

1st. True mastership consists in creating an army with extant elements, and not in clamoring for what is altogether impossible to obtain.

2d. The idea is preposterous to try to have a large thus-called regular army. A small number, fifteen to twenty thousand men, divided among several hundreds of thousands of volunteers, would be as a drop of water in a lake. Besides, this war is to be decided by the great ma.s.ses of the volunteers, and it is uncivic and unpatriotic to in any way nourish the wickedly-a.s.sumed discrimination between regulars and volunteers.

3d. Good non-commissioned officers and corporals const.i.tute the sole, sound, and easy articulations of a regiment. Any one who ever was in action is aware of this truth. With good non-commissioned officers, even ignorant lieutenants do very little harm. The volunteer regiments ought to have as many good sergeants and corporals as possible.

4th. To provide for this want, and for reasons mentioned above, the relics of the regular army ought to be dissolved. Let us have one army, as the enemy has.

5th. All the rank and file of the army ought to be made at once corporals and sergeants, and be distributed as much as possible among the volunteers.

6th. The non-commissioned regulars ought to be made commissioned officers, and with officers of all grades be distributed and merged in the one great army.

For the first time since the armaments, I enjoyed a genuine military view. McClellan, surrounded as a general ought to be, went to see the army. It looks martial. The city, likewise, has a more martial look than it had all the time under Scott. It seems that a young, strong hand holds the ribbons. G.o.d grant that McClellan may preserve his western vigor and activity, and may not become softened and dissolved by these Washington evaporations. If he does, if he follows the routine, he will become as impotent as others before him. Young man, beware of Washington's corrupt but flattering influences. To the camp! to the camp! A tent is better for you than a handsome house. The tent, the fumes of bivouacs, inspired the Fredericks, the Napoleons, and Washingtons.

Up to this day they make more history in Secessia than here. Jeff. Davis overshadows Lincoln. Jeff. Davis and his gang of malefactors are pushed into the whirlpool of action by the nature of their crime; here, our leaders dread action, and grope. The rebels have a clear, decisive, almost palpable aim; but here * *

AUGUST, 1861.

The truth about Bull Run - The press staggers - The Blairs alone firm - Scott's military character - Seward - Mr. Lincoln reads the Herald - The ubiquitous lobbyist - Intervention - Congress adjourns - The administration waits for something to turn up - Wade - Lyon is killed - Russell and his shadow - The Yankees take the loan - Bravo, Yankees! - McClellan works hard - Prince Napoleon - Mana.s.sas fortifications a humbug - Mr. Seward Improves - Old Whigism - McClellan's powers enlarged - Jeff. Davis makes history - Fremont emanc.i.p.ates in Missouri - The Cabinet.

The truth about Bull Run will, perhaps, only reach the people when it becomes reduced to an historical use. I gather what I am sure is true.

About three weeks ago General McDowell took upon himself the responsibility to attack the enemy concentrated at Mana.s.sas. Deciding upon this step, McDowell showed the determination of a true soldier, and a cool, intelligent courage. According to rumors permeating the whole North; rumors originated by secessionists in and around Washington, and in various parts of the free States; rumors gulped by a part of the press, and never contradicted, but rather nursed, at headquarters, Mana.s.sas was a terrible, unknown, mysterious something; a bugbear, between a fortress made by art and a natural fastness, whose approaches were defended for miles by numberless masked batteries, and which was filled by countless thousands of the most ferocious warriors. Such was Mana.s.sas in public opinion when McDowell undertook to attack this formidable American Torres Vedras, and this with the scanty and almost unorganized means in men and artillery allotted to him by the senile wisdom of General Scott. General McDowell obtained the promise that Beauregard alone was to be before him. To fulfil this promise, General Scott was to order Patterson to keep Johnston, and a movement was to be made on the James River, so as to prevent troops coming from Richmond to Mana.s.sas. As it was already said, Patterson, a special favorite of General Scott, kindly allowed Johnston to save Beauregard, and Jeff. Davis with troops from Richmond likewise was on the spot. McDowell planned his plan very skilfully; no European general would have done better, and I am sure that such will be the verdict hereafter. Some second-rate mistakes in the execution did not virtually endanger its success; but, to say the truth, McDowell and his army were defeated by the imbecility of the supreme military authority. Imbecility stabbed them in the back.

One part of the press, stultified and stupefied, staggered under the blow; the other part showed its utter degradation by fawning on Scott and attacking the Congress, or its best part. The Evening Post staggered not; its editors are genuine, laborious students, and, above all, students of history. The editors of the other papers are politicians; some of them are little, others are big villains. All, intellectually, belong to the cla.s.s called in America more or less well-read men; information acquired by reading, but which in itself is not much.

The brothers Blair, almost alone, receded not, and put the defeat where it belonged-at the feet of General Scott.

The rudis indigestaque moles, torn away from Scott's hands, already begins to acquire the shape of an army. Thanks to the youth, the vigor, and the activity of McClellan.

General Scott throws the whole disaster on politicians, and abuses them. How ungrateful. His too lofty pedestal is almost exclusively the work of politicians. I heard very, very few military men in America consider Scott a man of transcendent military capacity. Years ago, during the Crimean campaign, I spent some time at West Point in the society of Cols. Robert Lee, Walker, Hardee, then in the service of the United States, and now traitors; not one of them cla.s.sed Scott much higher above what would be called a respectable capacity; and of which, as they said, there are many, many in every European army.

If one a.n.a.lyzes the Mexican campaign, it will be found that General Scott had, comparatively, more officers than soldiers; the officers young men, full of vigor, and in the first gush of youth, who therefore mightily facilitated the task of the commander. Their names resound to-day in both the camps.

Further, generals from the campaign in Mexico a.s.sert that three of the won battles were fought against orders, which signifies that in Mexico youth had the best of cautious senility. It was according to the law of nature, and for it it was crowned with success.

Mr. Seward has a very active intellect, an excellent man for current business, easy and clear-headed for solving any second-rate complications; but as for his initiative, that is another question. Hitherto his initiative does not tell, but rather confuses. Then he sustains Scott, some say, for future political capital. If so it is bad; worse still if Mr. Seward sustains Scott on the ground of high military fitness, as it is impossible to admit that Mr. Seward knows anything about military affairs, or that he ever studied the description of any battle. At least, I so judge from his conversation.

Mr. Lincoln has already the fumes of greatness, and looks down on the press, reads no paper, that dirty traitor the New York Herald excepted. So, at least, it is generally stated.

The enemies of Seward maintain that he, Seward, drilled Lincoln into it, to make himself more necessary.

Early, even before the inauguration, McDowell suggested to General Scott to concentrate in Washington the small army, the depots scattered in Texas and New Mexico. Scott refused, and this is called a general! G.o.d preserve any cause, any people who have for a savior a Scott, together with his civil and military partisans.

If it is not direct, naked treason which prevails among the nurses, and the various advisers of the people, imbecility, narrow-mindedness, do the same work. Further, the way in which many leech, phlebotomize, cheat and steal the people's treasury, is even worse than rampant treason. I heard a Boston shipbuilder complain to Sumner that the ubiquitous lobbyist, Thurlow Weed, was in his, the builder's, way concerning some contracts to be made in the Navy Department, etc., etc. Will it turn out that the same men who are to-day at the head of affairs will be the men who shall bring to an end this revolt or revolution? It ought not to be, as it is contrary to logic, and to human events.

Lincoln alone must forcibly remain, he being one of the incarnated formulas of the Const.i.tution, endowed with a specific, four years' lasting existence.

The Americans are nervous about foreign intervention. It is difficult to make them understand that no intervention is to be, and none can be made. Therein the press is as silly as the public at large. Certainly France does not intend any meddling or intervention; of this I am sure. Neither does England seriously.

Next, if these two powers should even thirst for such an injustice, they have no means to do it. If they break our blockades, we make war, and exclude them from the Northern ports, whose commerce is more valuable to them than that of the South. I do not believe the foreign powers to be forgetful of their interest; they know better their interests than the Americans.

The Congress adjourned, abandoning, with a confidence unparalleled in history, the affairs of the country in the hands of the not over far-sighted administration. The majority of the Congress are good, and fully and n.o.bly represent the pure, clear and sure aspirations, instincts, nay, the clear-sightedness of the people. In the Senate, as in the House, are many, very many true men, and men of pure devotion, and of clear insight into the events; men superior to the administration; such are, above all, those senators and representatives who do not attempt or aim to sit on a pedestal before the public, before the people, but wish the thing to be done for the thing itself. But for the formula which chains their hands, feet, and intellect, the Congress contained several men who, if they could act, would finish the secession in a double-quick time. But the whole people move in the treadmill of formulas. It is a pity that they are not inspired by the axiom of the Roman legist, scire leges non est hoc verba earum tenere, sed vim ac potestatem. Congress had positive notions of what ought to be done; the administration, Micawber-like, looks for that something which may turn up, and by expedients patches all from day to day.

What may turn up n.o.body can foresee; matter alone without mind cannot carry the day. The people have the mind, but the official legal leaders a very small portion of it. Come what will, I shall not break down; I shall not give up the holy principle. If crime, rebellion, sauvagerie, triumph, it will be, not because the people failed, but it will be because mediocrities were at the helm. Concessions, compromises, any patched-up peace, will for a century degrade the name of America. Of course, I cannot prevent it; but events have often broken but not bent me. I may be burned, but I cannot be melted; so if secesh succeeds, I throw in a cesspool my doc.u.ment of naturalization, and shall return to Europe, even if working my pa.s.sage.