H. McClellan.—Invasion of Maryland, 1862. Go in the rear of Lee, cut him from his basis, and then Lee would be lost, even having a McClellan for an antagonist.
I. McClellan.—After Antietam battle, won by Hooker, and above all by the indomitable bravery of the soldiers and officers, and not by McClellan's generalship, Lee ought to have been followed and thrown into the Potomac.
K. McClellan.—Lay for weeks idle at Harper's Ferry, gave Lee time to reorganize his army and to take positions. Elections. Copperheads, French mediation.
L. McClellan.—By not cutting Lee in two when he was near Gordonsville, Jackson at Winchester, and our army around Warrenton.
M. Burnside.—By continuing the above mentioned fault of McClellan.
N. Burnside.—By his sluggish march to Fredericksburgh, (see Diary, December.)
O. Halleck, Meigs, etc. The affair of the pontoons.
P. Burnside, Franklin.—The attack of the Fredericksburg Heights.
March 28.—From the day of Sumter, and when the Massachusetts men hurrying to the defence of the Union, were murdered by the Southern gentlemen in Baltimore, this struggle in reality is carried on between the Southern gentlemen, backed by abettors in the North, (abettors existing even in our army,) all of them united against the Yankee, who incarnates civilization, right, liberty, intellectual superior development, and therefore is hated by the gentleman—this genuine Southern growth embodying darkness, violence, and all the virtues highly prized in hell. The Yankee, that is, the intelligent, laborious inhabitant of New England and of the Northern villages and towns, represents the highest civilization: the best Southern gentleman, that lord of plantations, that cotton, tobacco and slavemonger, at the best is somewhat polished, varnished; the varnish covers all kinds of barbarity and of rottenness. It is to be regretted that our army contains officers modelled on the Southern pattern, to whom human rights and civilization are as distasteful as they are to any high-toned slave-whipper in the South.
March 29.—The destruction of slavery, the triumph of self government ought not to be the only fruit of this war. The politician ought to be buried in the offal of the war. The crushing of politicians is a question as vital as the crushing of the rebellion and of treason. All the politicians are a nuisance, a curse, a plague worse than was any in Egypt. All of them are equal, be they Thurlow Weeds or Forneys, or etc. etc. etc. A better and purer race of leaders of the people will, I hope, be born from this terrible struggle. Were I a stump speaker I should day and night campaign against the politician, that luxuriant and poisonous weed in the American Eden.