April 15.—I wrote to Hooker imploring him for the sake of the country, and for the sake of his good name, to put an end to the carousings in his camp, and to sweep out all kind of women, be they wives, sisters, sweethearts or the promiscuous rest of crinolines.
April 15.—Certain Republican newspapers perform now the same capers to please and puff Seward and Halleck, as they did before to puff McClellan when in power.
April 16.—Night after night the White House is serenaded. And why not?... From all sides news of brilliant victories on land and on sea; news that Seward's foreign policy is successful; everywhere Halleck's military science carries before it everything, and lickspittles are numberless.
Wild jauchtzend schleudert selbst der Gott der Freude,
Den Pechkrantz in das brenene Gebaüde!
My veins and brains almost bursting to witness all this. But for ... it would be all over.
... tibi desinet.
April 17.—I met one of the best and of the most radical ex-members of Congress. He was very desponding, almost despairing at the condition of affairs. He returned from the White House, and notwithstanding his despair, tried to explain to me how Mr. Lincoln's eminent and matchless civil and military capacities finally will save the country. Et tu, Brute, exclaimed I, without the classical accent and meaning. The ex-honorable had in his pocket a nomination for an influential office.
April 17.—Immense inexhaustible means in men, money, beasts, equipment, war material devoured and disappearing in the bottomless abyss of helplessness. The counterfeits ask for more, always for more, and more of the high-minded people grudge not its blood.
Labitur ex oculis ... gutta meis.
A Forney puffs Cameron over Napoleon! A true American gentlewoman as patriotic as patriotism itself, quivering under the disastrous condition of affairs at home and abroad, exclaimed: "that at least the Southern leaders redeem the honor of the American name by their indomitable bravery, their iron will and their fertility of resources." What was to be answered?