d fifty
thousand men, were well kept in hand, Lee and Bragg ought to be
annihilated.

Hurrah for Lincoln and Halleck!

_October 8._--From various sides I am assured that Stanton passed
into the camp of Lincoln, with horse, foot and artillery. I doubt
it, but--all is possible in this good-natured world. Stanton, like
others, may be stimulated by the _amor sceleratus_ of power.

_October 8._--Lee's Report, containing the operations after the
battle of Chancellorsville, the invasion of Pennsylvania, and his
recrossing of the Potomac at Williamsport, is published now. But
Lee, a true soldier, made his report in the last days of July,
therefore almost instantly after the campaign was finished.
Sympathizers with McClellan's essays on military or on other
matters! there is another example for you, how and when such things
ought to be done. Meade has not yet made his Report.

_October 9._--The cautiousness of Meade and his fidelity to
McClellan-like warfare are above admiration. General Buford, brave
and daring, weeks ago offered to make with his cavalry a raid in the
rear of Lee and destroy the railroads to the south-west--those main
arteries for Virginia. The offer was vetoed by the commander of the
Potomac army. Had Lee ever vetoed Stewart's raids? Lee rather
stimulated and directed them.

_October 10._--And the power-holders let loose their mastiffs. And
the mastiffs ran at my heels and tried to tear my inexpressibles and
all. And they did not, because they could not. Because my friends
(J. H. Bradley,) stood by me. And the people's justice stepped in
between the mastiffs and me, and I exclaim with the miller of
Potsdam, "There are judges in Washington."

_October 11._--I most positively learn that even Thurlow Weed urged
upon the President the immediate removal of Halleck, and even
Thurlow Weed could not prevail. Many and many sins be forgiven to
the Prince of the Lobby, to the man who understood how to fish out a
fortune in these national troubles.

_October 12._--_Caesar morituri te salutant_, say our brave soldiers
to Lincoln.

The Meades and the McClellans, like most of the greatnesses of the
West Point clique, have no impulse, no sense for attack, because
what is called _la grande guerre_, that is the offensive war, was
not among the special objects of the military education in West
Point. This is evident by the pre-eminence given to engineering, and
to the engineers who represent the defensive war; and th