Nov. 25.—The Army is stuck fast in the mud, and the march towards Fredericksburgh is not at all unlikely to end in smoke. There seems to be an utter absence of executive energy. Why not mask our movements before Gordonsville from the observation of Lee? Or, if preferable, what is to hinder the interposition of un rideau vivant, a living curtain, in the form of a false attack, a feint in considerable force, behind which the whole army might be securely thrown across the Rappahannock, by which at least two days' march would be gained on Lee, and our troops would be on the direct line for Fredericksburg, if Fredericksburg is really to be the base for future operations. In this way, the army would have marched against Fredericksburg on both sides of the river. Or, supposing those plans to be rejected, why not throw a whole army corps at once, say 40,000 to 50,000 strong, across the Rappahannock. On either plan, I repeat it, at least two days' march would have been stolen upon Lee; three or four days of forced marches would have been healthy for our army, and a bloodless victory would have been obtained by the taking of the seemingly undefended Fredericksburg. A dense cloud enveloped this whole enterprise, and it is not even improbable, that the campaign may become a dead failure even before it has accomplished the half of its projected and loudly vaunted course. But bold conceptions, and energetic movements to match them, are just about as possible to Halleck or Burnside as railroad speed to the tedious tortoise.
Nov. 25.—Oh! So Louis Napoleon could not keep quiet. He offers his mediation, which, in plain English, means his moral support to the South. Oh! that enemy to the whole human race. That Decembriseur.[1] Our military slowness, if nothing else is the matter, our administrative and governmental helplessness, and Seward's lying and all-confusing foreign policy have encouraged foreign impertinence and foreign meddling. I have all along anticipated them as an at least very possible result of the above mentioned causes. [See vol. I of the Diary.] Nevertheless, I scarcely expected such results to appear so soon. Perhaps this same impertinent French action may prove a second French faux pas, to follow in the wake of the first and very egregious faux pas in Mexico. The best that we can say for the Decembriseur is, that he is getting old. England refuses to join in his at once wild and atrocious schemes, and makes a very Tomfool of the bloody Fox of the Tuileries. My, Russia—ah! I am very confident of that—will refuse to join in the dirty and treacherous conspiracy for the preservation of slavery. Well for mediation. But Mr. Decembriseur, what think you and your diplomatic lackeys; what judgment and what determination do you and they form as to the terms and the termination, too, of your diabolical scheme? Descend, sir, from your shilly-shally generalities and verbal fallacies. Is it to be a commercial union, this hobby of your minister here? What is it; let us in all plainness of speech know what it is that you really and positively intend. Propound to us the plain meaning and scope of your imperial proposition.
Nov. 27.—Lee, with his army, marches or marched on the south side of the river, in a parallel to the line of Burnside on the north side of the river, and Jackson quietly, but quickly follows. They are at Fredericksburg, and our army looms up, calm, but stern; still, but defiant and menacing. I heartily wish that Burnside may be successful, and that I may prove to have been a false prophet. But the great Fatum, Fate, seems to declare against Burnside, and Fate generally takes sides with bold conceptions and their energetic execution.
Nov. 28.—The French despatch-scheme reads very like a Washington concoction, and does not at all bear the marks of Parisian origin. I find in it whole phrases which, for months past, I have repeatedly heard from the French minister here. Perhaps Mr. Mercier, in his turn, may have caught many of Mr. Seward's much-cherished generalities, unintelligible, very probably, even to himself, and quite certainly so to every one but himself. Perhaps, I say, Mr. Mercier may have caught up some of them, and making them up at hap-hazard into a macedoine, a hash, a hotch-potch, has served up the second-hand and heterogeneous mess to his master in Paris. The despatch expresses the fear of a servile war; this may very well have been copied from Mr. Seward's despatch to Mr. Adams, (May, 1862,) wherein Seward attempted to frighten England by a prophecy of a servile war in this country.
Nov. 30.—Mr. Seward semi-officially and conveniently accepts the French impudence. Computing the time and space, the scheme corresponds with McClellan's inactivity after Antietam, and with the raising of the banner of the Copperheads. I spoke of this before, (see Diary for November and December, 1861, in Vol. I.) and repeatedly warned Stanton.
Nov. 30.—Mercier, the French diplomat, rapidly gravitates towards the Copperheads—Democrats. Is he acting thus in obedience to orders? After all, some of the diplomats here, and especially those of what call themselves the "three great powers," almost openly sympathize and side with secessionists, and patronize Copperheads, traitors, and spies. The exceptions to this rule are but few; strictly speaking, indeed, I should except only one young man. Some diplomats justify this conduct on the plea that the Republican Congressmen are "great bores," who will not play at cards, or dine and drink copiously; accomplishments in which the Secesh was so pre-eminent as to win his way to the inner depths of the diplomatic heart. The people, I am sure, will heartily applaud those of its representatives for thus incurring the contempt of dissipated diplomats.
Some persons maintain that Stanton breaks down, perhaps that he suffers, physically as well as mentally, from his necessitated contact with his official colleagues and his and their persistent, inevitable and inexorable hangers-on and supplicants. I do not perceive the alleged failure of his health or powers, and I do not believe it; but assuredly, it were no marvel if such really were the case. It must be an adamantine constitution and temper that could long bear with impunity the daily contact with a Lincoln, a Seward, a Halleck, and others less noted, indeed, but not the less contagious.
DECEMBER, 1862
President's Message — Political position — Fredericksburgh — Fog — Accident — Crisis in the Cabinet — Secretary Chase — Burnside — Halleck — the Butchers — The Lickspittle Republican Press — War Committee patriots — Youth — People — Ring out.
Grammarians may criticize the syntax of the President's message, and the style. It reads uneasy, forced, tortuous, and it declares that it is impossible to subdue the rebels by force of arms. Of course it is impossible with Lincoln for President, and first McClellan and then Halleck to counterfeit the parts of the first Napoleon, and the at once energetic and scientific Carnot. Were the great heart of THE PEOPLE left to itself, it would be very possible and even quite easily possible.