August 5: L. B.—Poor Stanton, I pity him! After Weed comes the "little villain," with his puffs. Happily, the World abuses Stanton, and this alone makes up even for the applause of Weed and his consorts.
August 7: L. B.—Coffey, Assistant Attorney-General, published a legal, official opinion on maritime, commercial copperheadism; that is, when an American vessel, from an American port, is sent in ballast to a neutral port to load there, afterwards to run the blockade, Coffey proves it to be treason and criminality. The document is clear, logical, precise and not wordy: not in the style of the State Department logomachy. Why, O why cannot such younger men be at the head! Emancipation would have been carried out, slavery destroyed, the Union restored, rebels crushed, and the French murderers and imperial lackeys would cut very respectful capers to please a great people.
August 8: L. B.—I shudder as I pass in review what little is done at such an enormous expenditure of human limbs and of human life, not to speak of squandered time, labor and money.
It seems that the prevailing rule is to reach the smallest results at the greatest possible cost. General Scott, Seward and Lincoln early laid down that rule. McClellan, that quintessence of all unsoldierlike capacities, faithfully continued what was already inaugurated. Halleck almost perfected it; and so it became a chronic disease of the leading spirits in the Administration, Stanton and Welles excepted. That sacrilegious, murderous method and rule, at times was forcibly violated by Grant, by Rosecrans, by Banks, by the glorious Farragut, by Admiral Porter. The would-be statesmen either see nothing or do not wish to see what ill-disposed minds could consider to be an almost premeditated slaughter.
I know too well that every initiation is with sacrifice or blood. It is a law of progress, absolute, not made by man, but cut out for him by fate or providence. In a stream of his mother's life-blood man enters this world; by the blood of the Redeemer the Christian becomes initiated to another, called a better world. Sacrifice and blood prevail throughout the eons of the initiation of human societies and religions. Through sacrifice and blood the Reformation became a redeemer. Great results are reached at great cost. I am an atom in a generation which, to assert her deep, earnest convictions, never caved in before blood and sacrifice; a generation that has labored and still labors, spreads seed and begins to harvest; a generation which regrets nothing, and cheerfully takes the responsibility of its actions. And with all this, the men of convictions and of undaunted revolutionary courage in Europe, bestowed and bestow more care upon any unnecessary sacrifice of human life than I witness here. By heavens! Marat, Saint Just, Robespierre, could be considered lambs when compared with the faiseurs here. And Marat, Saint Just, and Robespierre were fanatics of ideas: here they are fanaticised by selfishness, intrigue, helplessness and imbecility.
August 9: L. B.—For the last few months men of sound and dispassionate judgment tried to convince me that there is somewhere, in high regions, a settled purpose to prolong the war until the next presidential election. I always disbelieved such assertions; but now, considering all this criminal sluggishness, I begin to believe in the existence of such a criminal purpose.
August 9: L. B.—All the open and secret Copperhead organs raise a shrill cry on account of what they pervert into McClellan's general Report of his unmilitary campaigns. When a commander is in the field, he is in duty bound, as soon as possible, that is, in the next few weeks, to send to his superior or to the Government, a Report of each of his military movements and operations. McClellan ought to have immediately made a Report to the Government after his bloodless victory at Centreville and Manassas; a victory crowned with maple trophies! Then McClellan ought to have sent another Report after the great success at Yorktown, and so on. Every period of his campaign ought to have been separately reported. It is done in all well organized governments and armies, and it is the duty of the staff of the army to prepare such periodical, successive Reports. Even if the sovereign himself takes the field, the staff of the army sends such Reports to the Secretary of War. Nobody stood in the way of McClellan's doing what it was his imperative duty to do, and to do immediately.
But it is unheard of that a commander during a year at the head of an army, should take another year to prepare his Report. No self-respecting government would allow such an insubordination, or accept such a tardy Report. If a government should act upon such a Report, it would be rather by dismissing from service, etc., the sluggish—if not worse—commander.
The so-called "McClellan's Report," concocted by a board of choice Copperheads in New York, and of which the World's hireling was an amanuensis, that production is certainly an elaborate essay on McClellan's campaigns, is certainly bristling with afterthoughts and post facta, as pedestals for the fetish's altar. It must have on its face the mark of combination, but not of truth. Such a Report—not written on the spot, in the atmosphere of activity, not written by officers of the staff, not by the Chief-of-staff—such a Report cannot command or inspire any confidence; it has not, and ought not to have any worth in the Government's archives. McClellan may publish his memoirs, or essays, or anything else, and therein may shine this labor of a dasippus assisted by vipers.
August 11: L. B.—In Washington they seem to insist that Grant shall take the command of the Potomac Army. If Grant accepts, he will be a ruined man. Grant ought to have Pope in memory. Grant soon will see stained his glorious and matchless military record. He will not withstand the cliques and the underground intrigues of craving, selfish and unsatisfied ambitions.