Part 12 (1/2)
May 12.-Sewardiana. Lord Lyons, or rather the English government, objects and protests against the instructions given to our cruisers, which instructions are intrinsically faultless. Mr. Lincoln jumps up and writes a clap-trap dispatch, wholly contrary to our statutes. Mr. Seward promises what he cannot perform, and this time the upshot is that his dispatch came before the Cabinet and was quashed, or, at least, recast.
The Morning Chronicle, of Was.h.i.+ngton-magnum Administration's excrementum-attacks Schalk and his military reasonings. Oh! great politician.
Sus Minervam docet.
May 13.-The defenders of Hooker affirm that Sedgwick was in fault, and disobeyed orders.
1st. I have good reasons firmly to believe that Sedgwick heroically obeyed and executed orders sent to him. No doubt can exist about it.
2d. The orders written by such a staff as Hooker's might have been written in such a way as to confuse the G.o.d Mars himself. Marshal Soult could fight, but as a chief of Napoleon's staff at Waterloo, could not write intelligible orders.
3d. Setting aside Sedgwick's disobedience of orders, it does not in the least justify Hooker in hearing the roar of cannon, and knowing what was going on, and at the head of eighty thousand men allowing Sedgwick to be crushed; and all this within a few miles. Fitz-John Porter was cas.h.i.+ered for a similar offense. Hooker's action is by far worse, and thus Hooker deserves to be shot.
May 13.-Rumors that Halleck is to take the command of the army, together with Hooker. I almost believe it, because it is nameless, and here all that is illogical is, eventually, probable.
Poor Hooker. Undoubtedly, he had a soldier's spark in him. But adulation, flunkeyism, concert, covered the spark with dirt and mud. I pity him, but for all that, down with Hooker!
If Hooker or Halleck commands the army, Lee will have the knack to always whip them.
May 14.-Wrote a paper for Senators Wade and Chandler, to point out the reasons of Hooker's failure. Did my utmost to explain to them that warfare to-day is not empiricism, but science, and that empiricism is only better when sham-science has the upper hand. Hooker's staff was worse than sham-science, and was not even empiricism.
I explained that such evils, although very deeply rooted, can, nevertheless, be remedied. An energetic government can, and ought to look for and find, the remedy. The army, as it is, contains good materials for every branch of organization; it is the duty of the government to discover them and give them adequate functions.
Further: I suggested to these patriotic Senators that as in the present emergency, it is difficult to put the hand on any general inspiring confidence, the President, the Secretary of War and the Senators, ought immediately to go to the army, and call together all the commanders of corps and of divisions. The President ought to explain to the difficulty, nay, the impossibility of making a new choice. But as the generals are well aware that there must be a commander, and that they know each other in the fire, the President appeals to their patriotism, and asks them to elect, by secret ballot on the spot, one from among themselves.
May 14: One o'clock, P. M.-The President, Halleck and Hooker in secret conclave. Stanton, it seems, is excluded. If so, I am glad on his account. G.o.d have mercy on this wronged and slaughtered people. No holy spirit will inspire the Conclave.
May 15.-The English Government shelters behind the Enlistment Act. The Act is a munic.i.p.al law, and a foreign nation has nothing to do with it. We are with England on friendly terms, and England has towards us duties of friendly comity, whatever be the munic.i.p.al law. To invoke the Enlistment Act against us, is a mean pettifogger's trick.
A good-natured imbecile, C--, everybody's friend, and friend of Lincoln, Seward and the Administration in the lump, C-- asked me what I want by thus bitterly attacking everybody.
”I want the rebellion crushed, the slaves emanc.i.p.ated; but above all I want human life not to be sacrilegiously wasted; I want men, not counterfeits.”
”Well, my dear, point out where to find them?” answered everybody's friend.
May 15.-On their return from Falmouth, the patriotic Senators told me that they felt the ground for my proposed election of a commander by his colleagues, and that General Meade would have the greatest chance of being elected. Va pour Meade. Some say that Meade is a Copperhead at heart. Nonsense. Let him be a Copperhead at heart, and fight as he fought under Franklin, or fight as he would have fought at Chancellorsville if Hooker had not been trebly stunned.
May 15.-Much that I see here reminds me of the debauched times in France; on a microscopic scale, however; as well as of the times of the Directoire. The jobbers, contractors, lobbyists, etc., here could perhaps carry the prize even over the supereminently infamous jobbers, etc., during the Directoire.
May 15.-”Peel of Halleck, Seward and Sumner,” exclaims Wendell Philips, the apostle. Wendell Samson shakes the pillars, and the roof may crush the Philistines, and those who lack the needed pluck.
May 16.-The President visited Falmouth, consoled Hooker and b.u.t.terfield, shook hands with the generals, told them a story, and returned as wise as he went concerning the miscarriage at Chancellorsville. The repulse of our army does not frighten Mr. Lincoln, and this I must applaud from my whole heart. It is however another thing to admire the cool philosophy with which are swallowed the causes of a Fredericksburgh and a Chancellorsville-causes which devoured about twenty thousand men, if not more.
May 16.-Strange stories, and incredible, if any thing now-a-days is incredible. Mr. Lincoln, inspired by Hitchc.o.c.k and Owen, turns spiritualist and rapper. Poor spirits, to be obliged to answer such calls!
May 17.-A high-minded, devoted, ardent patriot, a general of the army, had a long conversation with the President, who was sad, and very earnest. The patriot observed that Mr. Lincoln wanted only encouragement to take himself the command of the Army of the Potomac. As it stands now, this would be even better than any other choice. I am sure that once with the army, separated from Seward & Co., Mr. Lincoln will show great courage. If only Mr. Lincoln could then give the walking papers to General Halleck!
On the authority of the above conversation, I respectfully wrote to the President, and urged him to take the army's command, but to create a genuine staff for the army around his person.
I submitted to the President that the question relating to a staff for the Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy [the President] and for the commander-in-chief of the Army, Major-General Halleck, has been often discussed by some New York, Boston and Was.h.i.+ngton dailies, and the wonted amount of confusion is thereby thrown broadcast among the public. The names of several generals have been mentioned by the press as a staff of the President. I doubt if any of them are properly qualified for such an important position. They are rather fitted for a military council ad latus to the President. Such a council exists in Russia near the person of the emperor; but it has nothing in common with a staff, with staff duties, or with the intellectual qualification for such duties. The project of such a council here was many months ago submitted to the Secretary of War. A Commander-in-chief, as mentioned above-one fighting and manuvring on paper-making plans in his office, unfamiliar with every thing const.i.tuting a genuine military, scientific or practical soldier-to whom field and battle are uncongenial or improper-to whom grand and even small tactics are a terra incognita-such a chief is at best but an imitation of the English military organization, and certainly it is only in this country that obsolete English routine is almost uniformly imitated. Such a Commander-in-chief might have been of some small usefulness when our Army was but thirteen thousand to sixteen thousand strong, was scattered over the country, or warred only with Indians on the frontier. But all the great and highly perfected military powers on the continent of Europe consider such a commander a wholly unnecessary luxury, and not even Austria indulges in it now.