ful, and that I must not flatter
myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I certainly know that if
the war fails the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for
it, whether I deserve it or not. And I ought to be blamed if I could do
better. You think I could do better; therefore you blame me already.
I think I could not do better; therefore I blame you for blaming me. I
understand you now to be willing to accept the help of men who are not
Republicans, provided they have "heart in it." Agreed. I want no others.
But who is to be the judge of hearts, or of "heart in it"? If I must
discard my own judgment and take yours, I must also take that of others
and by the time I should reject all I should be advised to reject, I
should have none left, Republicans or others not even yourself. For be
assured, my dear sir, there are men who have "heart in it" that think you
are performing your part as poorly as you think I am performing mine. I
certainly have been dissatisfied with the slowness of Buell and McClellan;
but before I relieved them I had great fears I should not find successors
to them who would do better; and I am sorry to add that I have seen little
since to relieve those fears.

I do not see clearly the prospect of any more rapid movements. I fear we
shall at last find out that the difficulty is in our case rather than in
particular generals. I wish to disparage no one certainly not those
who sympathize with me; but I must say I need success more than I need
sympathy, and that I have not seen the so much greater evidence of getting
success from my sympathizers than from those who are denounced as the
contrary. It does seem to me that in the field the two classes have been
very much alike in what they have done and what they have failed to do.
In sealing their faith with their blood, Baker and Lyon and Bohien and
Richardson, Republicans, did all that men could do; but did they any
more than Kearny and Stevens and Reno and Mansfield, none of whom were
Republicans, and some at least of whom have been bitterly and repeatedly
denounced to me as secession sympathizers? I will not perform the
ungrateful task of comparing cases of failure.

In answer to your question, "Has it not been publicly stated in the
newspapers, and apparently proved as a fact, that from the commencement of
the war the enemy was continually supplied with information by some of the
confidential subordinates of as important an officer as Adjut