cy with this fetish, make
speeches in his defence. Scott broadly prepared the defeat, and now,
through the mouths of flunkeys and spit-lickers,[2] he attempts to
throw the fault on the thus called politicians.

[Footnote 2: Foremost among them was the editor of the New York
Times, publishing a long article wherein he proved that he had
been admitted to General Scott's table, and that the General
unfolded to him, the editor, the great anaconda strategy. Exactly
the thing to be admired and gulped by a man of such _variegated_
information as that individual.

That little villianish "article" had a second object: it was to
filch subscribers from the Tribune, which broke down, not over
courageously.]

The President telegraphed for McClellan, who in the West, showed
_rapidity of movement_, the first and most necessary capacity for a
commander. Young blood will be infused, and perhaps senility will be
thrown overboard, or sent to the Museum of the Smithsonian Institute.

At Bull Run the foreign regiments ran not, but covered the retreat.
And Scott, and worse than he, Thomas, this black spot in the War
Department, both are averse to, and when they can they humiliate, the
foreigners. A member of Congress, in search of a friend, went for
several miles up the stream of the fugitive army; great was his
astonishment to hear spoken by the fugitives only the unmixed, pure
Anglo-Saxon.

My friend, J. Wadsworth, behaved cool, brave, on the field, and was
devoted to the wounded. Now, as always, he is the splendid type of a
true man of the people.

Poor, unhappy McDowell! During the days when he prepared the army, he
was well aware that an eventual success would be altogether attributed
to Scott; but that he, McDowell, would be the scapegoat for the
defeat. Already, when on Sunday morning the news of the first
successes was known, Scott swallowed incense, and took the whole
credit of it to himself. Now he accuses the politicians.

Once more. Scott himself prepared the defeat. Subsequent elucidation
will justify this assertion. One thing is already certain: one of the
reasons of the lost battle is the exhaustion of troops which
fought--and the number here in Washington is more than 50,000 men.
Only an imbecile would divide the forces in such a way as to throw
half of it to attack a superior and entrenched enemy. But Scott wished
to shape the great events of the country in accordance with his
na