n end of
it. In any other country, such culprits would have been at the least
dismissed--cashiered, if not shot; here, their influence is on the
increase. Halleck and Meigs are still great before Mr. Lincoln, and
before the mass of nincompoops.

Rhetors and sham-erudites are ecstatic about Burnside's conduct.
Well! Burnside is good-natured--that is all. They forget the example
of Canrobert and Pellisier, in the Crimea. Canrobert, after having
commanded the army, gave up the command, and served under Pellisier.
Oh declaimers! Oh imbeciles! ransack not the world--let Rome alone,
and its Punic wars, its Varrus, etc.--Disturb not history, which,
for you, is a book with seventy-seven seals. You understand not
events under your long noses, and before your opaque eyes.

When in animal bodies the brains are diseased, the whole body's
functions are more or less paralyzed. The official brains of the
nation are in a morbid condition. _That_ explains all.

_Dec. 27._--I wish I could succeed in bringing about the
organization of a good Staff for the army. _Etat Major General de
l'Armee_ Stanton seems to understand it, but the Hallecks and other
West Pointers have neither the first idea of it, nor the will to see
it done.

_Dec. 28._--The so-called great papers of the Republican party in
New York, as well as some would-be statesmen here, discuss the
probability of some new manifestation by Louis Napoleon, or by
other European powers, of interference in our internal affairs. The
probability of such a demonstration by European meddlers can only
have one of the following causes:--Our terrible disaster at
Fredericksburg, or, what even is worse than that slaughter, the
absolute incapacity of our leaders to cope with such great and
terrible events as this last one. The bravery, the heroism of our
soldiers will be applauded, admired, and pitied in Europe, but the
utter intellectual marasmus, as shown by our administration, will
and must embolden the European marplots to attempt to stop what they
consider a further unnecessary massacre. General Burnside's report,
and the evidence before the War Committee are before the country and
before Europe. Therefore Europe and our country are to judge.

During his last visit in summer to New York, etc. the French
Minister came in contact with low French adventurers, (Courriers des
Etats Unis) with copperheads and with democrats, and now he is taken
with sickly diplomatic sentimentalism to concil