Senator Sumner pines and laments, Jeremiah-like, on the
ruins of our foreign policy, and accuses Seward of it--behind his
back. Why has not _pater conscriptus_ uttered a single word of
condemnation from his Senatorial _fauteuil_, and kept mute during
three sessions? _Sunt nobis homunculi sed non homines._

_April 5._--A letter in the papers, in all probability written under
the eye of General Franklin, tries to exculpate the General from all
the blood spilt at Fredericksburgh. It will not do, although the
writer has in his hands documents, as orders, etc. Franklin orders
General Meade to attack the enemy's lines at the head of 4500 men,
(he ought to have given to Meade at least double that number); brave
and undaunted Meade breaks through the enemy; and Franklin's excuse
for not supporting Meade is, that he had no orders from
head-quarters to do it. By God! Those geniuses, West Point No. Ones,
suppose that any dust can be thrown to cover their nameless--at the
best--helplessness. Franklin commanded a whole wing, sixty thousand
men; his part in the battle was the key to the whole attack.
Franklin's eventual success must decide the day. Meade was in
Franklin's command, and to support Meade, Franklin wants an order
from head-quarters. Such an excuse made by a general at the head of
a large part of the army--or rather such a crime not to support a
part of his own command engaged with the enemy, because no special
orders from head-quarters prescribed his doing so--such a case or
excuse is almost unexampled in the history of warfare. And when such
cases happened, then the guilty was not long kept in command. Three
bloody groans for Franklin!

_April 6._--George Bancroft has the insight of a genuine historian.
Few men, if any, can be compared to him for the clearness, breadth,
and justness with which in this war Bancroft comprehends and
embraces events and men. Bancroft's judgment is almost faultless,
and it is to be regretted that Bancroft, so to speak, is outside of
the circle instead of being inside, and in some way among the
pilots.

_April 6._--The Report of the Committee on the Conduct of the War
will make the coming generation and the future historian shudder. No
one will be able to comprehend how such a McClellan could have been
thus long kept in the command of an army, and still less how there
could have existed men claiming to have sound reason and heart, and
constitute a McClellan party. McClellan is the most di