k,
ought not and could not have been so fatal to the whole campaign. A
true captain would have been prepared for such eventuality. Battles
are recorded in history when a whole wing broke down and retreated,
and nevertheless the true captain restored order and fortunes, and
won the battle.

I am told that the rebels attacked in columns, and not in lines. The
rebels learn and learned, and are not conceited. The terrain here in
Virginia is specially fit for attacks in columns, according to
continental European tactics. We will not learn, we know all, we
have graduated--at West Point.

_May 11._--I have it from a very reliable source, that Mr. Lincoln
considers Sumner to be not very entertaining.

_May 11._--The confusion is on the increase. Statesmen, politicians,
honest, dishonest, stupid and intelligent, all huddled together.
Their name is legion--and what a stench. It is abominable! And many
think, and many may think, that I find pleasure in dwelling on such
events, on such men as are here. When I was a child, my tutor
ingrained into my memory the _Cum stercore dum certo_, etc. But at
any cost, I shall try to preserve the true reflection of events, of
times, and of the actors.

_May 12._--Jackson dead. Dead invincible! and therefore fell in time
for his heroic name. Jackson took a sham, a falsehood, for faith and
for truth--but he stood up faithfully, earnestly, devotedly to his
convictions. Whatever have been his political errors, Jackson will
pass to posterity, the hero of history, of poetry, and of the
legend. His name was a terror, it was an army for friend and for
enemy. For Jackson

_O selig der, dem er in Siegesglantze,
Die blutigen Lorbeer'n um die Schlaefe windet._

_May 12._--_Sewardiana._ Lord Lyons, or rather the English
government, objects and protests against the instructions given to
our cruisers, which instructions are intrinsically faultless. Mr.
Lincoln jumps up and writes a clap-trap dispatch, wholly contrary to
our statutes. Mr. Seward promises what he cannot perform, and this
time the upshot is that his dispatch came before the Cabinet and was
quashed, or, at least, recast.

The Morning _Chronicle_, of Washington--_magnum_ Administration's
_excrementum_--attacks SCHALK and his military reasonings. Oh! great
politician.

_Sus Minervam docet._

_May 13._--The defenders of Hooker affirm that Sedgwick was in
fault, and disobeyed orders.

1st. I have good reasons firmly to believe