The Diary of Adam Gurowski. Adam Gurowski
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nonsense. These narrow-minded West Point martinets will become the ruin of McClellan.
McClellan could now take the field. Oh, why has he established his headquarters in the city, among flunkeys, wiseacres, and spit-lickers? Were he among the troops, he would be already in Manassas. The people are uneasy and fretting about this inaction, and the people see what is right and necessary.
Gen. Banks, a true and devoted patriot, is sacrificed by the stupidity of what they call here the staff of the great army, but which collectively, with its chief, is only a mass of conceit and ignorance — few, as General Williams, excepted. Banks is in the face of the enemy, and has no cavalry and no artillery; and here are immense reviews to amuse women and fools.
Mr. Mercier, the French Minister, visited a considerable part of the free States, and his opinions are now more clear and firm; above all, he is very friendly to our side. He is sagacious and good.
Missouri is in great confusion — three parts of it lost. Fremont is not to be accused of all the mischief, but, from effect to cause, the accusation ascends to General Scott.
Gen. Scott insisted to have Gen. Harney appointed to the command of Missouri, and hated Lyon. If, even after Harney's recall, Lyon had been appointed, Lyon would be alive and Missouri safe. But hatred, anxiety of rank, and stupidity, united their efforts, and prevailed. Oh American people! to depend upon such inveterate blunderers!
Were McClellan in the camp, he would have no flatterers, no antechambers filled with flunkeys; but the rebels would not so easily get news of his plans as they did in the affair on Munson's Hill.
The Orleans are here. I warned the government against admitting the Count de Paris, saying that it would be a deliberate breach of good comity towards Louis Napoleon, and towards the Bonapartes, who prove to be our friends; I told that no European government would commit itself in such a manner, not even if connected by ties of blood with the Orleans. At the start, Mr. Seward heeded a little my advice, but finally he could not resist the vanity to display untimely spread-eagleism, and the Orleans are in our service. Brave boys! It is a noble, generous, high-minded, if not an altogether wise, action.
If a mind is not nobly inspired and strong, then the exercise of power makes it crotchety and dissimulative in contact with men. To my disgust, I witness this all around me.
The American people, its institutions, the Union — all have lost their virginity, their political innocence. A revolution in the institutions, in the mode of life, in notions begun — it is going on, will grow and mature, either for good or evil. Civil war, this most terrible but most maturing passion, has put an end to the boyhood and to the youth of the American people. Whatever may be the end, one thing is sure — that the substance and the form will be modified; nay, perhaps, both wholly changed. A new generation of citizens will grow and come out from this smoke of the civil war.
The Potomac closed by the rebels! Mischief and shame! Natural fruits of the dilatory war policy — Scott's fault. Months ago the navy wished to prevent it, to shell out the rebels, to keep our troops in the principal positions. Scott opposed; and still he has almost paramount influence. McClellan complains against Scott, and Lincoln and Seward flatter McClellan, but look up to Scott as to a supernatural military wisdom. Oh, poor nation!
In Europe clouds gather over Mexico. Whatever it eventually may come to, I suggested to Mr. Seward to lay aside the Monroe doctrine, not to meddle for or against Mexico, but to earnestly protest against any eventual European interference in the internal condition of the political institutions of Mexico.
Continual secondary, international complications, naturally growing out from the maritime question; so with the Dutch cheesemongers, with Spain, with England — all easily to be settled; they generate fuss and trouble, but will make no fire.
Gen. Scott's partisans complain that McClellan is very disrespectful in his dealings with Gen. Scott. I wonder not. McClellan is probably hampered by the narrow routine notions of Scott. McClellan feels that Scott prevents energetic and prompt action; that he, McClellan, in every step is obliged to fight Gen. Scott's inertia; and McClellan grows impatient, and shows it to Scott.
OCTOBER, 1861
Experiments on the people's life-blood — McClellan's uniform — The army fit to move — The rebels treat us like children — We lose time — Everything is defensive — The starvation theory — The anaconda — First interview with McClellan — Impressions of him — His distrust of the volunteers — Not a Napoleon nor a Garibaldi — Mason and Slidell — Seward admonishes Adams — Fremont goes overboard — The pro-slavery party triumph — The collateral missions to Europe — Peace impossible — Every Southern gentleman is a pirate — When will we deal blows? — Inertia! inertia!
As in the mediæval epoch, and some time thereafter, anatomists and physiologists experimented on the living villeins, that is, on peasantry, serfs, and called this process experientia in anima vili, so this naïve administration experiments in civil and in military matters on the people's life-blood.
McClellan, stirred up by the fools and peacocks around him, has sent to the War Department a project of a showy uniform for himself and his staff. It would be to laugh at, if it were not insane. McClellan very likely read not what he signed.
The army is in sufficient rig and organization to take the field; but nevertheless McClellan has not yet made a single movement imperatively prescribed by the simplest tactics, and by the simplest common sense, when the enemy is in front. Not a single serious reconnoissance to ascertain the real force of the enemy, to pierce through the curtain behind which the rebels hide their real forces. It must be conceded to the rebel generals that they show great skill in humbugging us. Whenever we try to make a step we are met by a seemingly strong force (tenfold increased by rumors spread by the secessionists among us, and gulped by our stupidity), which makes us suppose a deep front, and a still deeper body behind. And there is the humbug, I am sure. If, on such an extensive line as the rebels occupy, the main body should correspond to what they show in front, then the rebel force must muster several hundreds of thousands. Such large numbers they have not, and I am sure that four-fifths of their whole force constitutes their vanguard, and behind it the main body is chaff. The rebels treat us as if we were children.
McClellan fortifies Washington; Fremont, St. Louis; Anderson asks for engineers to fortify some spots in Kentucky. This is all a defensive warfare, and not so will the rebel region be conquered. We lose time, and time serves the rebels, as it increases their moral force. Every day of their existence shows their intrinsic vitality.
The theory of starving the rebels out is got up by imbeciles, wholly ignorant of such matters; wholly ignorant of human nature; wholly ignorant of the degree of energy, and of abnegation, which criminals can display when firmly decided upon their purpose. This absurdity comes from the celebrated anaconda Mississippi-Atlantic strategy.
Oh! When in Poland, in 1831, the military chiefs concentrated all the forces in the fortifications of Warsaw, all was gone. Oh for a dashing general, for a dashing purpose, in the councils of the White House! The constitutional advisers are deaf to the voice of the people, who know more about it than do all the departments and the military wiseacres. The people look up to find as big brains and hearts as are theirs, and hitherto the people have looked up in vain. The radical senators, as a King, a Trumbull, a Wade, Wilson, Chandler, Hale, etc., the true Republicans in the last session of Congress — further, men as Wadsworth and the like, are the true exponents of the character, of the clear insight, of the soundness of the people.
McClellan, and even the administration, seem not to realize that pure military considerations cannot fulfil the imperative demands of the political situation.
October 6th. — I met McClellan; had with him a protracted conversation, and could look well into him. I do not attach any value to physiognomies, and consider phrenology, craniology, and their kindred, to be rather humbugs; but, nevertheless, I was struck with the soft, insignificant inexpressiveness