st lost by Halleck
and Buell. Congress adjourned, and no investigation was made into
Halleck's conduct after Corinth in 1862. The Western army
disappeared; Buell commanded in Kentucky, and rebels, guerillas,
cut-throats, murderers and thieves overflow the west, menaced
Cincinnati. And all this when the Secretary of War in his report
speaks about eight hundred thousand men in the field. But the
Secretary of War provides men and means; great Lincoln, the still
greater Halleck distribute and use them. This explains all. Burnside
is honest and loyal, only give him no army to command. I deeply
regret that Burnside's honesty squares not at all with his military
capacity.

The Government is at a loss what to do with honest, ignorant,
useless military big men, who in some way or other rose above their
congenial but very low level. Already last year I suggested (in
writing) to Stanton to gather together such intellectual military
invalids and to establish an honorary military council, to counsel
nothing. Occasionally such a council could direct various
investigations, give its advice about shoes, pants, horses and
horse-shoes. Something like such council really exists in Russia,
and I pointed it out to Stanton for imitation.

_March 25._--Stanton scorns the slander concerning his alliance with
Seward and Weed. It is an invention of Blair, and based on the fact
that Stanton sides with Seward in the question _of letters of
marque_, opposed by Blair under the influence of Sumner the
civiliser. I believe Stanton, and not my former informer.

_Halleckiana._ This great, unequalled great man declared that "it
were better even to send McClellan to Kentucky, or to the West, than
to send there Fremont, as Fremont would at once free the niggers."

The admirers of poor argument, of spread-eagleism, and of ignorant
quotations stolen from history, make a fuss about Mr. Seward's State
papers. The good in these papers is where Mr. Seward, in his
confused phraseology, re-echoes the will, the decision of the
people, no longer to be humbugged by England's perversion of
international laws and of the rights and duties of neutrals; the
will of the people sooner or later to take England to account. (I
hope it will be done, and no English goods will ever pollute the
American soil. It will be the best vengeance.) The repudiation of
any mediation is in the marrow of the people, and Seward's muddy
arguments only perverted and weakened it. In Europe,