Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863

count De Gurowski Adam G.

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pubOne.info thank you for your continued support and wish to present you this new edition. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1864,

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• History of the Americas
• American Civil War
• États-Unis
• Guerre de Sécession

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819915812
• Langue: English

Extrait

VOLUME SECOND.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year1864,
By GEO. W. CARLETON,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for theSouthern District of New York.
Of all the peoples known in history, the Americanpeople most readily forgets YESTERDAY;
I publish this DIARY in order to recall YESTERDAY tothe memory of my countrymen. GUROWSKI.
WASHINGTON, October, 1863.
NOVEMBER, 1862.
Secretary Chase – French Mediation – theDecembriseur – Diplomatic Bendings. November 18. – In thestreet a soldier offered to sell me the pay already several monthsoverdue to him. As I could not help him, as gladly I would havedone, being poor, he sold it to a curb-stone broker, a streetnote-shaver. I need not say that the poor soldier sustained a lossof twenty-five per cent. by the operation! He wanted to send themoney home to his poor wife and children; yet one fourth of it wasthus given into the hands of a stay-at-home speculator. Alas, forme! I could not save the poor fellow from the remorseless shaver,but I could and did join him in a very energetic cursing of Chase,that at once pompous and passive patriot.
This induced me to enter upon a further and moreparticular investigation, and I found that hundreds of similarcases were of almost daily occurrence; and that this cheating ofthe soldiers out of their nobly and patriotically earned pay, mayquite fairly be denounced as rather the rule than as the exception.The army is unpaid! Unspeakable infamy! Before, – long before theintellectually poor occupant of the White House, long before any civil employé, big or little, the ARMY ought to be paid.Common humanity, common sense, and sound policy affirm this; andcommon decency, to say nothing about chivalric feelings, adds thatwhen paymasters are sent to the army at all, their first paymentsshould be made to the rank and file; the generals and theirsubordinate officers to be paid, not before, but afterwards. Oh!for the Congress, for the Congress to meet once again! My hope isin the Congress, to resist, and sternly put an end to, suchheaven-defying and man-torturing injustice as now braves the cursesof outraged men, and the anger of God. How this pompous Chasedisappoints every one, even those who at first were inclined to beeven weakly credulous and hopeful of his official career. And whyis Stanton silent? He ought to roar. As for Lincoln – he, ah! Thecurses of all the books of all the prophets be upon the culpritswho have thus compelled our gallant and patriotic soldiery tomingle their tears with their own blood and the blood of the enemy! Nov. 18. – Again Seward assures Lord Lyons that the nationaltroubles will soon be over, and that the general affairs of thecountry "stand where he wanted them." Seward's crew circulate inthe most positive terms, that the country will be pacified by theState Department! England, moved by the State papers and officialnotes – England, officially and non-officially, will stop theiron-clads, built and launched in English ports and harbors for theuse of the rebels, and for the annoyance and injury of the UnitedStates. England, these Americans say, England, no doubt, has saidsome hard words, and has been guilty of some detestably treacherousactions; but all will probably be settled by the benign influenceof Mr. Seward's despatches, which, as everyone knows, are perfectlyirresistible. How the wily Palmerston must chuckle in DowningStreet.
The difference between Seward and a real statesman,is this: that a statesman is always, and very wisely, chary aboutcommitting himself in writing, and only does it when compelled byabsolutely irresistible circumstances, or by temptations brilliantenough to overrule all other considerations; for, such a statesmannever for one moment forgets or disregards the old adage whichsaith that " Verba volant, scripta manent ." But Seward, onthe contrary, literally revels in a flood of ink, and fancies thatthe more he writes, the greater statesman he becomes.
At the beginning of this month, I wrote to theFrench minister, M. Mercier, a friendly and respectful note,warning him against meddling with politicians and busybodies. Itold him that, before he could even suspect it, such men wouldbring his name before the public in a way neither pleasant norprofitable to him. M. Mercier took it in good part, and cordiallythanked me for my advice. Nov. 19. – Burnside means well,and has a good heart; but something more is required to make acapable captain, more especially in such times as those in which weare living. It is said that his staff is well organized; God bepraised for that, if it really is so. In that case, Burnside willbe the first among the loudly-lauded and self-conceited West-Pointmen, forcibly to impress both the military and the civilian mind inAmerica, with a wholesome consciousness of the paramount importanceto an army of a thoroughly competent and trustworthy staff.
The division of the army into three grand corps isgood; it is at once wise and well-timed, following the example setby Napoleon, when he invaded Russia in 1812. If his subordinategenerals will but do well, I have entire confidence in Hooker. Heis the man for the time and for the place. As a fighting man,Sumner is fully and unquestionably reliable; but I have my doubtsabout Franklin. He is cold, calculating, and ambitious, and he hasthe especially bad quality of being addicted to the alternateblowing of hot and cold. Burnside did a good thing in confiding toGeneral Siegel a separate command.
The New York Times begins to mend its badways; but how long will it continue in the better path? Nov.20. – England stirs up and backs up rebellion and disunionhere; but, in Europe, for the sake of the unity of barbarism,Islamism, and Turkey, England throttles, and manacles, and laysprostrate beneath the feet of the Osmanli, the Greeks, the Sclavi,the heroic Montenegrins. England is the very incarnation of atreachery and a perfidy previously unexampled in the history of theworld. The Punica fides , so fiercely denounced and sobitterly satirized by the historians and poets of old Rome, wastruthful if compared to the Fides Anglica of our own day. Nov. 22. – Our army seems to be massed so as to be able towedge itself in between Jackson in the valley and Lee atGordonsville. By a bold manoeuvre, each of them could be separatelyattacked, and, I firmly believe, destroyed. But, unfortunately,boldness and manoeuvre, that highest gift, that supreme inspirationof the consummate captain, have no abiding place in the bemuddledbrains of the West-Pointers, who are a dead weight and drag-chainupon the victimised and humiliated Army of the Potomac. Nov.25. – The Army is stuck fast in the mud, and the march towardsFredericksburgh is not at all unlikely to end in smoke. There seemsto be an utter absence of executive energy. Why not mask ourmovements before Gordonsville from the observation of Lee? Or, ifpreferable, what is to hinder the interposition of un rideauvivant , a living curtain , in the form of a false attack,a feint in considerable force, behind which the whole army might besecurely thrown across the Rappahannock, by which at least twodays' march would be gained on Lee, and our troops would be on thedirect line for Fredericksburg, if Fredericksburg is really to bethe base for future operations. In this way, the army would havemarched against Fredericksburg on both sides of the river. Or,supposing those plans to be rejected, why not throw a whole armycorps at once, say 40,000 to 50,000 strong, across theRappahannock. On either plan, I repeat it, at least two days' marchwould have been stolen upon Lee; three or four days of forcedmarches would have been healthy for our army, and a bloodlessvictory would have been obtained by the taking of the seeminglyundefended Fredericksburg. A dense cloud enveloped this wholeenterprise, and it is not even improbable, that the campaign maybecome a dead failure even before it has accomplished the half ofits projected and loudly vaunted course. But bold conceptions, andenergetic movements to match them, are just about as possible toHalleck or Burnside as railroad speed to the tedious tortoise. Nov. 25. – Oh! So Louis Napoleon could not keep quiet. Heoffers his mediation, which, in plain English, means his moralsupport to the South. Oh! that enemy to the whole human race. That Decembriseur . Our military slowness, if nothing else is thematter, our administrative and governmental helplessness, andSeward's lying and all-confusing foreign policy have encouragedforeign impertinence and foreign meddling. I have all alonganticipated them as an at least very possible result of the abovementioned 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 secondFrench faux pas , to follow in the wake of the first and veryegregious faux pas in Mexico. The best that we can say forthe Decembriseur is, that he is getting old. England refusesto join in his at once wild and atrocious schemes, and makes a veryTomfool of the bloody Fox of the Tuileries. My, Russia – ah! I amvery confident of that – will refuse to join in the dirty andtreacherous conspiracy for the preservation of slavery. Well formediation. But Mr. Decembriseur , what think you and yourdiplomatic lackeys; what judgment and what determination do you andthey form as to the terms and the termination, too, of yourdiabolical scheme? Descend, sir, from your shilly-shallygeneralities and verbal fallacies. Is it to be a commercial union,this hobby of your minister here? What is it; let us in allplainness of speech know what it is that you really and positivelyintend. Propound to us the plain meaning and scope of your imperialproposition. [Footnote 1: The men who, in the great Frenchrevolution, and under the leadership of Danton and of themunicipality of Paris, massacred the political prisoners inSeptember, 1792, are recorded in history unde