Not the one who strikes the first blow begins a civil war, but he who makes the striking of the blow imperative. The Southern robbers cannot claim exemption; they stole the arsenals, and struck the first blow at Sumpter. So much for the infamous quill-heroes of the London Times, the Herald, and tutti quanti.
The highest crime is treason in arms, and this crime is praised and defended by the English would-be high-toned press. But sooner or later it will come out how much apiece was paid to the London Times, the Herald, and the Saturday Review for their venomous articles against the Union.
McClellan expelled from the army the Hutchinson family. It is mean and petty. Songs are the soul and life of the camp, and McClellan's heroic deeds have not yet found their minstrel.
After all, McClellan has organized—nothing! McDowell has, so to speak, formed the first skeletons of brigades, divisions, of parks of artillery, etc. The people uninterruptedly poured in men and treasures, and McClellan only continued what was commenced before him.
I positively know that already in December Mr. Lincoln began to be doubtful of McClellan's generalship. This doubtfulness is daily increasing, and nevertheless Mr. Lincoln keeps that incapacity in command because he does not wish to hurt McClellan's feelings. Better to ruin the noble people, the country! I begin to draw the conclusion that Mr. Lincoln's good qualities are rather negative than positive.
Mr. Adams complains that he is kept in the dark about the policy of the administration, and cannot answer questions made to him in London. But the administration, that is, Lincoln and Seward, are a little a la Micawber, expecting what may turn up. And, besides this, the great orator de lana caprina (Mr. Adams) deliberately degraded himself to the condition of a corporal under Mr. Seward's orders.
Victories in the West, results of the new spirit in the War Department. Stanton will be the man.
It is a curious fact that such commanders as Halleck, etc., sit in cities and fight through those under them; and there are ignoble flatterers trying to attribute these victories to McClellan, and to his strategy. As if battles could be commanded by telegraph at one thousand miles' distance. It is worse than imbecility, it is idiotism and strategy.
Stanton calls himself a man of one idea. How he overtops in the Cabinet those myrmidons with their many petty notions! One idea, but a great and noble one, makes the great men, or the men for great events. Would God that the people may understand Stanton, and that pettifoggers, imbeciles, and traitors may not push themselves between the people and Stanton, and neutralize the only man who has the one idea to break, to crush the rebellion.
Every day Mr. Lincoln shows his want of knowledge of men and of things; the total absence of intuition to spell, to see through, and to disentangle events.