January 20.—Wrote a respectful letter to the President on Halleck's military science, his book, and capacity. Told respectfully to Mr. Lincoln that not even the Sultan would dare to palm such a Halleck on his army and on his people.
Mr. Lincoln in his greatness says that "he will stand and fall with his Cabinet." O, Mr. Lincoln! O, Mr. Lincoln! purple-born sovereigns can no more speak so!
Mr. Lincoln! with the gang of politicians, your advisers and friends, you all desire immensely, and will feebly. You desire the reconstruction of the Union, and you almost shun the ways and means to do it. And thus this noble people is dragged to a slaughter house.
Parumne campis atque Neptuno super
Fusum est—[Yankee] sanguinis?
January 21.—Deep, irreconcilable as is my hatred of slavocrats and rebels, nevertheless I am forced to admire the high intellectual qualities of their chiefs, when compared with that of ours. Of Lincoln versus Jeff Davis I spoke in the first volume. But now Lee, Jackson, Hill, Ewall, versus Halleck, McClellan, McDowell, Franklin, etc.
January 22.—Wendell Phillips's Amen oration to the Proclamation is noble and torrent-like oratory. Greeley is the better Greeley of former times. I heartily wish to admire and speak well of Greeley, as of every body else. Is it my fault that they give me no occasion?
January 23.—General Fitz-John Porter, McClellan's pet, told me to-day, that after the battle at Hanover Court House, he supplicated McClellan to attack Richmond at once—which in Porter's opinion could have been taken without much ado,—and not to change his base to James River; and even Fitz-John could not prevail on this demigod of imbeciles, traitors and intriguers.
January 24.—Here is one of the thousand flagrant lies with which Seward entangles Lincoln, as with a net of steel. Lincoln assured General Ashley that the public is unjust toward Seward in accusing him of having worked for the defeat of Wadsworth. That they have been the best friends for long years; that, when Military Governor of Washington, Wadsworth was a daily visitor in Seward's house; and that, during the canvass, Wadsworth consulted with Seward concerning his (Wadsworth's) actions.
Mr. Seward knows that every one of those assertions which he or Thurlow Weed pushed down the throat of Mr. Lincoln is a flagrant lie. Every one knows that for many, many years the high-toned Wadsworth had in utter detestation Mr. Seward's character as a lawyer or as a public man, and that he never spoke to him, and never was his political or private friend.
I am sorry to bring such details before the public, but how otherwise convict a liar? As for Thurlow Weed's secret and open machinations against the election of Wadsworth, only an idiot or a s.... doubts them. Ask the New York politicians, provided they have manhood to tell the truth.