resembling bushwhackers; the pillars of Copperheadism in the House,
take umbrage at the sight and the name of New England, and abuse the
New England spirit with all their coppery might. Well they may. So
did Satan hate and abuse light.

Patriot Stanton is earnestly at work concerning the organization of
Africo-Americans on a mighty scale; busy against him, likewise, are
the intriguers, the traitors, the cavillers, the Sewardites and the
McClellanites, all being of the same kidney. Seward sighs for
McClellan. But Stanton will override the muddy storm. He has at his
side men as pure, energetic and devoted as Watson, a patriot without
a flaw.

Stanton surrounds himself and selects young men--as far as he can,
he crowds out the remains of Scott, so tenderly protected by
Lincoln. Could he only have swept out the rest of the old fogies!
Undoubtedly these young men in the War Department would give new
life to it.

_February 6._--The people at large are at a loss to find the cause
of the recent disasters. The general axiom is, "we are not a
military nation." Neither is the South. But here they forget that
every great or small effect has its--not only--cause, but several
causes. Many such causes have been repeatedly pointed out. Old
routine in military organization stands foremost. Few, if any,
understand wherein consists the proper organization of an army, and
most have notions reaching back sixty years. The medical and
surgical bureaus are obsolete. Governor Andrew of Massachusetts, who
is always on the right side, and with him many young men, insisted
upon organizing the above services as they are organized in the
Continental armies of Europe. But even in the Senate prevailed the
respect for dusty, rusty, domestic tradition. The few changes forced
by the outcry of the people cure not the evil. Skeletons and not
men are at work, and if they are not skeletons they are leeches of
the government and of the people's blood.

Thus likewise, when the organizations of the staffs was discussed,
no one had the first notion of the nature and duties of a staff; and
the military authorities were as ignorant as the civilians. Of
course a McClellan, then a Halleck, Meigs, Hitchcock, etc., could
not disperse the fog. Many Congressmen were thunderstruck by the
display of words which, as they were purely technical terms, the
Congressmen in question could not understand. Others sought for
guidance in the Staff of Wellington, and thus oddly