Dec. 23.—Mr. Lincoln's proclamation to the butchered army! For heaven's sake let us know, pray, pray let us know who was Lincoln's amanuensis? I hope it was not Stanton. The army is defiled. "An accident," says this precious proclamation, "has prevented victory." What accident? Let the country know the precise nature of that same accident, and the manner, time, and place of its occurrence! Burnside talks about a fog! Oh! yes, a deep, dense terribly foul fog—in the cerebellum! Is that the accident of which the precious proclamation so impudently speaks? Lincoln makes the wonderful discovery that the crossing and the recrossing of the river are quite peerless, absolutely unparallelled military achievements.
Happy it was for the army, and happy for the country that at Fredericksburgh, our heroic soldiers gave far other and nobler proofs of more than human courage and fortitude than the mere crossing and recrossing of a river.
The Tribune is either in its dotage, or still worse. Burnside's unsoldierly blundering is compared to the great victorious splendors of Asperm, Esslingen, Wagram, and the tyrant-crushing three days of immortal Waterloo! The Tribune lauds the crossing and the recrossing of the river, as an act of superhuman bravery; and Lincoln sympathises with the heavily wounded, and twaddles extensively about comparative losses. Comparative to what? Oh! spirits of Napoleon and his braves; oh! spirit of true history, veil your blushing brows! And the Tribune dares to make this impudent attempt at befogging the American people, and at the same time dares to tell that people that it is "intelligent."
But let us not forget those comparative losses! Comparative to what? To those of the enemy? What knows he about them?
Dec. 24.—Crisis in the Seward cabinet. The "little Villain" of the Times, repeated what he did after the first "Bull Run." But he did not now confess to his dining with Seward, as formerly he did with the great "anaconda Scott!" The New York Republican press is attracted to Seward by natural affinity of election. Seward, however, holds the honey pot, and the flies are all eager to dip into it.
I wish, yet dread to hear the exact particulars of Stanton's behavior during the crisis in the cabinet. It is so very, very painful to be rudely awakened to distrust of those whom once we have too implicitly, too fondly believed. Lincoln has now become accustomed to Seward, as the hunchback is to his protuberance. What man who has an ugly excrescence on his face does not dread the surgeon's knife, although he knows that momentary pain will be followed by permanent relief?
At the public dinner of "The New England Society," John Van Buren nominated McClellan for next President, and proposed the health of Secretary Seward. Oh! quam pulchra societas!
I am charged with being "dissatisfied with every thing, and abusing every body." The charge is unjust. I speak most lovingly and in most sincere admiration of the millions, of the great, toiling, brave, honest People, and of the hundreds of thousands of the gallant people-militant—the army! But I do censure some thirty or forty individuals who dispense favors and appoint to fat offices, and, quite naturally, every dirty-souled lickspittle is indignant against me therefor! The blame of such people is far preferable to their praise!
I am rejoiced, I am almost proud that Hooker insisted upon crossing the Rappahannock, and marching to Fredericksburgh, and that he opposed the subsequent attack.
But of what benefit to me is this fatal, this Cassandra gift of foreseeing? Alas! Better, happier would it be for me could I not have foreseen and vainly, all vainly foretold, the terrible butchery of a brave people during two long and fatal years!