If Halleck could only know what in a European army any tyro knows, Halleck would make Mr. Lincoln understand that such an appointment must produce confusion, as no regular staffs exist in our army. (I spoke somewhere about it.)
August 13: L. B.—Can it be possible that several from among the Republicans, honest leaders, gravitate towards Lincoln, and already begin to agitate for Lincoln's re-election? If it is so—if the people submit to such an imposition—O, then, genius of history, go in mourning!
August 13: L. B.—The Board appointed by Stanton to investigate into the condition of the Africo-Americans, has published its dissertation—very poor—in the shape of a Report. Stanton intended to do a good thing by appointing that Board. It did not turn out so well as Stanton expected. What is the use of expatiating—as do the three wise men in their Report—on certain psychological qualities and non-qualities of the Africo-American? The paramount question is how to organize the emancipated in their condition of freedom. When Stanton appointed that Board he wished to have elucidated, if not settled, the way and manner in which to deal with the new citizens or semi-citizens; but Stanton was the last man to look for an old psychological re-hash, without any social or moral signification whatever; a re-hash whose axioms and apothegms are, at least, a quarter of a century behind the scientific elucidations on races, on Africans, even on Anglo-Saxons.
August 15: L. B.—Weeks ago Grant sent his Report, embracing the various operations connected with the fall of Vicksburgh. Grant did not want a year to make a school-boy like composition, as did McClellan with his quill-holders. Every word of Grant's Report resounds with military spirit and simplicity. Grant has not to put truth on the rack and throw dust into people's eyes. Three cheers for McClellan! Grant has confidence in the volunteers; not so McClellan, who had only confidence in shams. Grant and his army, at the best, were the second sons of the Administration—not of the people; to the last day McClellan was the pet, the spoiled child, and as such he disgraced his parents, tutors, etc., and ruined his parent's house.
August 15.—A letter published by the Honorable W. Whiting, (who is now traveling,) occasions much noise. The letter is pointed and keen, but the writer knows mighty little about international laws. Almost a priori he recognizes in the rebels, as he says, "only the rights of belligerents." Only the rights of belligerents! Such rights are very ample, and for this reason they belong in their plenitude exclusively to absolutely independent nations. To recognize a priori such rights in the rebels, is equivalent to recognizing them as an independent nation. In pure and absolute principle of modern (not Roman) jus gentium, rebels have not only no belligerent rights, but not any rights at all. Rebels are ipso facto outlaws in full. Writers like Abbe Galiano, Vatel, etc., for the sake of humanity and expediency, recommend to the lawful sovereign to use mercy, to treat rebels in parte as belligerents, and not as a priori condemned criminals.
August 16: L. B.—Seward is to promenade the diplomats over the country. He is Barnum, the diplomats are the menagerie. Poor Lord Lyons. Very probably it is Seward's last rocket to draw upon himself the attention of the people.
August 16. L. B.—The probabilities of a rupture with France are upon the public mind. I still misbelieve it. I have not the slightest doubt that the Decembriseur is full of treachery towards the North, and that his Imperialist lackeys blow brimstone against the Northern principles. But are the French people so debased as to submit? We shall see. Let that crowned conspirator begin a war of treason against the North. Before long the French people will put an end to the war and to the Decembriseur.
August 16. L. B.—I learn that Watson has very gravely injured his health by labor, that is, by being the most faithful servant of the country and of its cause. I never, anywhere in my life, met a public officer so undaunted at his duties, so unassuming, so quiet as Watson, in his duties of Assistant Secretary of War, which are as thorny as can be imagined. Watson was, and I hope will be for the future, the terror of lobbyists, of bad contractors, of jobbers—in one word, the terror of all the leeches of the people's pocket. And it honors Stanton to have brought into his Department such a man as Watson. I heard and hear, and read a great many accusations against Stanton; but I never found any proofs which could virtually diminish my confidence. To use a classical, stupid, rhetorical figure: Stanton is not of antique mould. And who is now? But he is a sincere, devoted and ardent patriot; he broadly comprehends the task and the duty to save the country, and he sees clearly and distinctly the ways and means to reach the sacred aim. Stanton may have, and very many assert that he has, numerous bristles in his character, in his deportment. Let it be so. It is the worse for him, but not for the cause he serves.
August 16. L. B.—Are the people again to receive a President from the hand of intriguers, from politicians, or from honest imbeciles? If the people will stand it, then they deserve to be kept in leading strings by all that medley.
August 16. L. B.—Rosecrans wants mounted infantry. The men of the day, the men who understand and comprehend the exigencies, the necessities of the war, they pierce through the rotten crust of fogyism. That is promise and hope. The great organizers of the army—the McClellans and the Hallecks—could never have found out that mounted infantry is necessary, and will render good service. Mounted infantry was not considered a necessity in the West Point halls, and Jomini mentions it not. How should a Halleck do so?