several months
ago. Orders from Washington forbade to do it; and it would be curious
to ascertain how far Mr. Seward is innocent in the perpetration of
these orders.

Chase and Seward dear-dearing each other! Amusing! Kilkenny cats! At
this game Seward will have the best of Chase, who is not a match for
tricks.

The New York Times attacks Capt. Dahlgren, of the Navy Yard. It is in
the nature of the "little villain" to bespatter men of such devotion,
patriotism, and eminent capacity as is Captain Dahlgren.

Thurlow Weed calls the Tribune "infernal," because it wishes a serious
war, and thus prevents the raising of a Union party in the South, so
flippantly looked for by him and Mr. Seward, his pupil. I see the time
coming when all these _gentlemen_ of the concessions, of the
not-hurting policy,--when all these conservative seekers for the Union
party will try, Pilatus-like, to wash their hands of the innocent
blood; but you shall try, and not succeed, to whitewash your stained
hands; you have less excuses on your side than had the Roman proconsul
on his side.

When Mr. Mercier was in Richmond, some of the rebel leaders and
generals told him that they believed not their senses on learning that
McClellan was going to Yorktown; that he never could have selected a
better place for them, and that they were sure of his destruction on
the Peninsula.

Perhaps McClellan wished to try his hand and rehearse the siege of
Sebastopol.

If McClellan's ignorance of military history were not so well
established, he would know that since Archimedes, down to Todleben,
more genius was displayed in the defence than in the attack of any
place. The making of approaches, parallels, etc., is an affair of
engineering school routine. Napoleon took Toulon rather as an
artillerist, who, having, calculated the reach of projectiles, put his
battery on a spot wherefrom he shelled Toulon. Napoleon took Mantua by
destroying the Austrian army which hastened to the relief of the
fortress. But the great American strategian knows better, and
satisfies (as said above) the rebels.

The New York Herald, the New York Times, and other staunch supporters
of McClellan, again and again trumpet that the rebels fear McClellan,
that they consider him to be the ablest general opposed to them. The
rebels are smart, and so is their ally, the New York Herald. As for
the Times, it is only a flunkeying "little villain."

McDowell, Banks, Fremont have about 70,000