activity, not
written by officers of the staff, not by the Chief-of-staff--such a
Report cannot command or inspire any confidence; it has not, and
ought not to have any worth in the Government's archives. McClellan
may publish his memoirs, or essays, or anything else, and therein
may shine this labor of a _dasippus_ assisted by vipers.

_August 11: L. B._--In Washington they seem to insist that Grant
shall take the command of the Potomac Army. If Grant accepts, he
will be a ruined man. Grant ought to have Pope in memory. Grant soon
will see stained his glorious and matchless military record. He will
not withstand the cliques and the underground intrigues of craving,
selfish and unsatisfied ambitions.

If Halleck could only know what in a European army any tyro knows,
Halleck would make Mr. Lincoln understand that such an appointment
must produce confusion, as no regular staffs exist in our army. (I
spoke somewhere about it.)

_August 13: L. B._--Can it be possible that several from among the
Republicans, honest leaders, gravitate towards Lincoln, and already
begin to agitate for Lincoln's re-election? If it is so--if the
people submit to such an imposition--O, then, genius of history, go
in mourning!

_August 13: L. B._--The Board appointed by Stanton to investigate
into the condition of the Africo-Americans, has published its
dissertation--very poor--in the shape of a Report. Stanton intended
to do a good thing by appointing that Board. It did not turn out so
well as Stanton expected. What is the use of expatiating--as do the
three wise men in their Report--on certain psychological qualities
and _non-qualities_ of the Africo-American? The paramount question
is how to organize the emancipated in their condition of freedom.
When Stanton appointed that Board he wished to have elucidated, if
not settled, the way and manner in which to deal with the new
citizens or semi-citizens; but Stanton was the last man to look for
an old psychological re-hash, without any social or moral
signification whatever; a re-hash whose axioms and apothegms are, at
least, a quarter of a century _behind_ the scientific elucidations
on races, on Africans, even on Anglo-Saxons.

_August 15: L. B._--Weeks ago Grant sent his Report, embracing the
various operations connected with the fall of Vicksburgh. Grant did
not want a year to make a school-boy like composition, as did
McClellan with his quill-holders. Every word of Grant's Report
reso