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extol to the skies Mr. Lincoln's firmness and straightforwardness. The
firmness is located, and is to be discovered in various places--in the
lips, in the chin, in the jaw, and God knows where else. I cannot
detect any firmness in his actions beyond that of sticking to
McClellan,--of whom he has the worst opinion,--and of resisting the
emancipation and the arming of Africo-Americans. He has firmness in
letting the country be ruined.

McClellan's bulletins constitute the most original and strange
collection of style in general, and of military style in particular.
Capt. Morin says that the first thing is to teach McClellan how to
write military bulletins.

Mr. Seward's crew of politicians is busily at work among congressmen,
etc., to prepare a strong party in support of the administration's
eventual concessions to slavery, in case Richmond is taken. Ultra
Democratic, half secession Senators are sounded.

The more the events complicate, the more they require a powerful,
all-embracing mind, but in the same proportion subside Mr. Lincoln,
Mr. Seward, Mr. Weed, and all the rest of the great men. Alone the
people and their true men subside not.

Poor McDowell suffers for the sins of others--above all, for those of
Mr. Lincoln and of his aulic council. He is internally broken down,
but behaves nobly; not as does this poor Fremont, whose disappearance
from the military scene cannot and must not be regretted. He is not a
military capacity; he was again badly surrounded, and his last battle
was fought at random, without any unity. I spoke about it with various
foreign officers serving under him, and all agree in the incapacity of
Fremont and of his staff.

Gen. Pope, a man for the circumstances, acted well in the West; at
last a new man.

McClellan inaugurated new tactics. It is to approach the enemy's army
by parallels and by trenches. He will not take or scare the enemy, but
he will immortalize his name far above the immortality of all not
great generals.

Night and day ambulances are conveying the sick and wounded here, and
large numbers, thousands upon thousands, going north. One must cry
tears of blood to witness such destruction, such a sacrifice of the
noblest people on the shrine of utter military incapacity. And the
traitors, the imbeciles, and the intriguers sing _hallelujah_ to
McClellan, and daily throw their slime at Stanton.

From time to time rumors and complaints are made concerning the
ill-will o