ance firm in their neutrality. Lord John Russell's
speeches in Parliament are all that can be desired.

Will it ever be thoroughly investigated and elucidated why, after the
evacuation of Corinth, the onward march of our everywhere-victorious
Western armies came at once to a stand-still? The guerillas, the
increase of forces in Richmond, and some eventual disasters, may be
directly traced to this inconceivable conduct on the part of the
Western commanders or of the Commander-in-chief. Was not some
Union-searching at the bottom of that stoppage? When, months ago, a
false rumor was spread about the evacuation of Memphis and Corinth,
Mr. Seward was ready to start for the above-mentioned places, of
course in search of the Union feeling. Perhaps others were drawn into
this Union-searching, Union and slavery-restoring conspiracy.

I have most positive reasons to believe that Gen. Halleck wished to
remove Gen. McClellan from the command of the army. The President
opposed to it. Men of honor, of word, and of truth, and who are on
intimate footing with Mr. Lincoln, repeatedly assured me that, in his
conversation, the President judges and appreciates Gen. McClellan as
he is judged and appreciated by those whom his crew call his enemies.
With all this, Mr. Lincoln, through thin and thick, supports McClellan
and maintains him in command. Such a double-dealing in the chief of a
noble people! Seemingly Mr. Seward and Mr. Blair always exercise the
most powerful influence. Both wished that the army remain in the
malarias of the James river. Whatever be their reasons, one shudders
in horror at the case with which all those culprits look on this
bloody affair. Oh you widowed wives, mothers, and sweethearts! oh you
orphaned children! oh you crippled and disabled, you impoverished and
ruined, by sacrificing to your country more than do all the Lincolns,
McClellans, Blairs, and Sewards! Some day you will ask a terrible
account, and if not the present day, posterity will avenge you.

It is very discouraging to witness that the President shows little or
no energy in his dealings with incapacities, and what a mass of
intrigues is used to excuse and justify incapacity when the nation's
life-blood runs in streams. Without the slightest hesitation any
European government would dismiss an incapable commander of an army,
and the French Convention, that type of revolutionary and
nation-saving energy, dealt even sharper with military and other
inc