President Lincoln
Complied With This Request, Thinking It Well To Avoid A Collision
Between The Mob And The Soldiers.
"We began cowardly, and now
we're going on cowardly, and darn't attack them.
Well; when we've
been whipped often enough, then we shall learn the trade." Now all
this - and I heard much of such a nature - could not be called
boasting. But yet with it all there was a substratum of
confidence. I have heard Northern gentlemen complaining of the
President, complaining of all his ministers, one after another,
complaining of the contractors who were robbing the army, of the
commanders who did not know how to command the army, and of the
army itself, which did not know how to obey; but I do not remember
that I have discussed the matter with any Northerner who would
admit a doubt as to ultimate success.
We were certainly rather melancholy at Newport, and the empty house
may perhaps have given its tone to the discussions on the war. I
confess that I could not stand the drawing-room - the ladies'
drawing-room, as such like rooms are always called at the hotels -
and that I basely deserted my wife. I could not stand it either
here or elsewhere, and it seemed to me that other husbands - ay, and
even lovers - were as hard pressed as myself. I protest that there
is no spot on the earth's surface so dear to me as my own drawing-
room, or rather my wife's drawing-room, at home; that I am not a
man given hugely to clubs, but one rather rejoicing in the rustle
of petticoats.
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