not eminent at all, whatever be Mr. Seward's opinion.
The Most Eminent is a curious observer of the canons, of the papal
bulls, and of other clerical and episcopal paraphernalia. The spirit
animating the Most Eminent is not the spirit of the Roman Sapienzia.
I well recollect what I heard lectured in that Roman papal
university.

_July 24._--As a dark and ominous cloud, Lee with his army hovers
around Washington, keeps the Shenandoah valley, and may again cross
over to the Cumberland valley. It seems that the generals whose
council-of-war allowed Lee to recross the river unhurt, believed
that Lee with all speed would run to Richmond; and now they hang to
his brow and eye.

The crime of Williamsport bears fruit. Never, never in this or in
the other life, can the perpetrators of the Williamsport crime atone
for it.

It may come that the western armies and generals will bring the
civil war to an end, the Potomac army all the time marching and
countermarching between the Potomac and the Rappahannock. And such a
splendid army, such heroic soldiers and officers, to be sacrificed
to the ignorant stubbornness of sham military science!

_July 25._--I positively learn that Gilmore has scarcely ten
thousand men, infantry, and is to storm the various forts and
defenses around the Charleston harbor. If Gilmore succeeds, then it
is a wonder. But in sound valuation, Gilmore has not men enough to
organize columns of attack so that the one shall follow the other
within a short, very short supporting distance. And the losses will
almost hourly reduce Gilmore's small force. I dread repulse and
heavy losses. Some one at the head-quarters deserves to be quartered
for such a distribution of troops. With the immense resources and
means of transportation, it is so easy to send twenty thousand
troops to Gilmore, attack, make short work of it, and then carry the
troops back to where they belonged. But to concentrate and act in
masses is not the _credo_ of the--not yet quartered--head-quarters.

_July 26._--Old--but not slow--Welles again gives to Seward a lesson
of good-behavior, of sound sense, and of mastery of international
laws. The prize courts side with Welles. Because Neptune has a white
wig and beard, he is considered slow, when in reality he is active,
unflinching, and progressive.

_July 26._--O, could I only exclaim, _Exegi monumentum aere
perennius_, to the noble, the patriotic, and the good, as well as to
the helpless, the