But for all that, there have been many more courtly presidents who, in a similar crisis, would have displayed less capacity, honesty, and plain dealing than Abraham Lincoln.
October 10th.—I got hold of M‘Clellan’s report on the Crimean war, and made a few candid remarks on the performance, which does not evince any capacity beyond the reports of our itinerant artillery officers who are sent from Woolwich abroad for their country’s good. I like the man, but I do not think he is equal to his occasion or his place. There is one little piece of policy which shows he is looking ahead—either to gain the good will of the army, or for some larger object. All his present purpose is to make himself known to the men personally, to familiarize them with his appearance, to gain the acquaintance of the officers; and with this object he spends nearly every day in the camps riding out at nine o’clock, and not returning till long after nightfall, examining the various regiments as he goes along, and having incessant inspections and reviews. He is the first Republican general who could attempt to do all this without incurring censure and suspicion. Unfortunate M‘Dowell could not inspect his small army without receiving a hint that he must not assume such airs, as they were more becoming a military despot than a simple lieutenant of the great democracy.
October 11th.—Mr. Mure, who has arrived here in wretched health from New Orleans, after a protracted and very unpleasant journey through country swarming with troops mixed with guerillas, tells me that I am more detested in New Orleans than I am in New York. This is ever the fate of the neutral, if the belligerents can get him between them. The Girondins and men of the juste milieu are ever fated to be ground to powder. The charges against me were disposed of by Mr. Mure, who says that what I wrote of in New Orleans was true, and has shown it to be so in his correspondence with the Governor, but, over and beyond that, I am disliked, because I do not praise the peculiar institution. He amused me by adding that the mayor of Jackson, with whom I sojourned, had published “a card,” denying point blank that he had ever breathed a word to indicate that the good citizens around him were not famous for the love of law, order, and life, and a scrupulous regard to personal liberty. I can easily fancy Jackson is not a place where a mayor suspected by the citizens would be exempted from difficulties now and then; and if this disclaimer does my friend any good, he is very heartily welcome to it and more. I have received several letters lately from the parents of minors, asking me to assist them in getting back their sons, who have enlisted illegally in the Federal army. My writ does not run any further than a Federal judge’s.
October 12th.—The good people of New York and of the other Northern cities, excited by the constant reports in the papers of magnificent reviews and unsurpassed military spectacles, begin to flock towards Washington in hundreds, where formerly they came in tens. The woman-kind are particularly anxious to feast their eyes on our glorious Union army. It is natural enough that Americans should feel pride and take pleasure in the spectacle; but the love of economy, the hatred of military despotism, and the frugal virtues of republican government, long since placed aside by the exigencies of the Administration, promise to vanish for ever.
The feeling is well expressed in the remark of a gentleman to whom I was lamenting the civil war: “Well, for my part, I am glad of it. Why should you in Europe have all the fighting to yourself? Why should we not have our bloody battles, and our big generals, and all the rest of it? This will stir up the spirits of our people, do us all a power of good, and end by proving to all of you in Europe, that we are just as good and first-rate in fighting as we are in ships, manufactures, and commerce.”
But the wealthy classes are beginning to feel rather anxious about the disposal of their money: they are paying a large insurance on the Union, and they do not see that anything has been done to stop the leak or to prevent it foundering. Mr. Duncan has arrived; to-day I drove with him to Alexandria, and I think he has been made happy by what he saw, and has no doubt “the Union is all right.” Nothing looks so irresistible as your bayonet till another is seen opposed to it.
October 13th.—Mr. Duncan, attended by myself and other Britishers, made an extensive excursion through the camps on horseback, and I led him from Arlington to Upton’s House, up by Munson’s Hill, to General Wadsworth’s quarters, where we lunched on camp fare and, from the observatory erected at the rear of the house in which he lives, had a fine view this bright, cold, clear autumn day, of the wonderful expanse of undulating forest lands, streaked by rows of tents, which at last concentrated into vast white patches in the distance, towards Alexandria. The country is desolate, but the camps are flourishing, and that is enough to satisfy most patriots bent upon the subjugation of their enemies.
October 14th.—I was somewhat distraught, like a small Hercules twixt Vice and Virtue, or Garrick between Comedy and Tragedy, by my desire to tell Duncan the truth, and at the same time respect the feelings of a friend. There was a rabbledom of drunken men in uniforms under our windows, who resisted the patrol clearing the streets, and one fellow drew his bayonet, and, with the support of some of the citizens, said that he would not allow any regular to put a finger on him. D—— said he had witnessed scenes just as bad, and talked of lanes in garrison towns in England, and street rows between soldiers and civilians; and I did not venture to tell him the scene we witnessed was the sign of a radical vice in the system of the American army, which is, I believe, incurable in these large masses. Few soldiers would venture to draw their bayonets on a patrol. If they did, their punishment would be tolerably sure and swift, but for all I knew this man would be permitted to go on his way rejoicing. There is news of two Federal reverses to-day. A descent was made on Santa Rosa Island, and Mr. Billy Wilson’s Zouaves were driven under the guns of Pickens, losing in the scurry of the night attack—as prisoner only I am glad to say—poor Major Vogdes, of inquiring memory. Rosecrans, who utterly ignores the advantages of Shaksperian spelling, has been defeated in the West; but D—— is quite happy, and goes off to New York contented.
October 15th.—Sir James Ferguson and Mr. R. Bourke, who have been travelling in the South and have seen something of the Confederate government and armies, visited us this evening after dinner. They do not seem at all desirous of testing by comparison the relative efficiency of the two armies, which Sir James, at all events, is competent to do. They are impressed by the energy and animosity of the South, which no doubt will have their effect on England also; but it will be difficult to popularize a Slave Republic as a new allied power in England. Two of General M‘Clellan’s aides dropped in, and the meeting abstained from general politics.