ENGELS TO JOSEPH WEYDEMEYER”™ 

Manchester, 24 November 1864 

Dear Weydemeyer, 

I was most pleased to hear from you again at long last.** We 
have been without your address for years, otherwise you would 
already have received a reminder from me earlier on. My address 
is still Ermen & Engels and will probably continue to be so for five 
years or so yet, unless the storm breaks in Germany. Marx’ 
address is No. 1, Modena Villas, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill, 
London, but Dr Marx, London, will also suffice if need be. 

Our plump little pig Blind is showing off here in Europe, 
wherever he can, just as he did over there, it is the only little 
pleasure the poor wee creature has, and he indulges it with an 
assiduity worthy of a better cause and greater success. However, 
ever since Marx belaboured him so thoroughly in Herr Vogt, he 
has been keeping out of our range. 

As far as Lassalle’s flirtations with Bismarck are concerned, they 
are beyond dispute. The passages quoted by Blind’ were, of 
course, actually uttered by Lassalle in the speech he made in 
Düsseldorf in his defence and published by him, so there is 
nothing to be done there.” For all his distinctive qualities, Lassalle 
had that Jewish respect for momentary success, which made it 
impossible for him to deny Louis Bonaparte his respect, or to 
refrain from professing such overtly Bonapartist principles as he 
did. Those, who were more closely acquainted with him, knew that 
these things were not occasional happenings. You can readily 
imagine that this was as disagreeable to us as it was grist to the 
mill of piglet Blind, and that alone would have been sufficient 
ground for us to have had nothing to do with all Lassalle’s 
agitation during his lifetime, although there were other reasons, 
too. Nevertheless, that is all over and done with now, and we shall 
have to see whether his agitation was just a flash in the pan, or 
whether there was really something to it. 

You will have heard that our poor Lupus died here on 9 May of 
this year. His was a loss for the party of an altogether different 
order from Lassalle’s. We shall never again find such a steadfast 
fellow, who knew how to talk to the people and was always there 
when things were at their most difficult. For 4 long weeks he had 
the most terrible headaches, his German doctor? neglected him, 
and at length a vessel burst in his brain from the colossal pressure 
of the blood, he gradually lost consciousness and died 10 days 
later. 

Nothing of much interest is happening here in Europe. The 
suppression of the Polish uprising ™ was the last decisive event; for 
his assistance in this, the Tsar‘ gave Bismarck permission to take 
Schleswig-Holstein from the Danes. It will be a long time before 
Poland is capable of rising again, even with help from outside, and 
yet Poland is quite indispensable to us. The despicable behaviour 
of the liberal German philistines is to blame; if those curs in the 
Prussian Chamber had had more insight and courage, all might be 
well— Austria was ready to march in support of the Poles at 
any time, and it was only Prussia’s attitude that prevented it, and 
the treachery of Mr Bonaparte, who was, of course, only prepared 
to keep his promises to the Poles if he could do so safely, i.e. if he 
was covered by Prussia and Austria. 

That war of yours over there!’ is really one of the most 

a ‘Ein republikanischer Protest’, Die Westliche Post, October-beginning of November 
1864. - > Louis Borchardt - © Alexander II 

stupendous things that one can experience. Despite the numerous 
blunders made by the Northern armies (enough by the South, 
too), the tide of conquest is rolling slowly but surely onward, and, 
in the course of 1865, at all events the moment will undoubtedly 
come when the organised resistance of the South will fold up like a 
pocket-knife, and the warfare turn into banditry, as in the Carlist 
war in Spain? and more recently in Naples.’? A people’s war of 
this kind, on both sides, has not taken place since great states have 
been in existence, and it will, at all events, point the direction for 
the future of the whole of America for hundreds of years to come. 
Once slavery, the greatest shackle on the political and_ social 
development of the United States, has been broken, the country is 
bound to receive an impetus from which it will acquire quite a 
differed position in world history within the shortest possible time, 
and a use will then soon be found for the army and navy with 
which the war is providing it. 

It was incidentally quite understandable that the North had 
some difficulty in providing itself with an army and generals. 
From the outset, the South’s oligarchy had brought the country’s 
few military forces under its control, it supplied the officers and 
furthermore raided the arsenals. The North found itself with no 
resources other than the militia, while the South had been training 
for years. From the outset, the South had a population accus- 
tomed to the saddle for use as light cavalry, on a scale the North 
could not match. The North adopted the habit, introduced from 
the South, of filling positions with party supporters; the South, in 
the midst of a revolution and with a military dictatorship, could 
brush that aside. Hence, all the blunders. I do not deny that Lee is 
a better general than any the North has, and that his latest 
operations around the fortified camp at Richmond* are master- 
pieces from which our glorious Prince Frederick Charles of 
Prussia could learn much. But, ultimately, the determined attacks 
of Grant and Sherman made all strategy superfluous. It is clear 
that Grant is sacrificing a colossal number of men, but what else 
could he do? I have absolutely no idea of the level of discipline in 
your army, its cohesion under fire, its capacity and willingness to 
endure hardship, and in particular the nature of its morazs, i.e. 
what can be demanded of it without its becoming demoralised. 
With such scanty reports and no proper maps, one needs to know 
all this before permitting oneself any judgment on this side of the 
water. What does seem certain to me, however, is that the army 
now commanded by Sherman is the best you have, as superior to 
Hood’s as Lee’s is to Grant’s. 

Your field-manual and elementary tactics are, as I hear, 
positively French—the basic formation thus presumably being the 
column with intervals between platoons. What kind of field 
artillery do you now have? If you can enlighten me on these 
points, I shall be greatly obliged. What has become of the great 
Anneke? Since the battle at Pittsburgh-Landing was all but lost 
because he was not supplied with everything which he should have 
had, according to the Prussian field-manual, he has quite vanished 
from my. view. Of the Germans who have joined in the war, 
Willich appears to have given the best account of himself, whereas 
Sigel has unmistakably demonstrated his mediocrity. And Schurz, 
the valiant Schurz, farting away amidst the shower of bullets and 
shells, what foes is he demolishing now? 

Apropos. The Prussian cannons that smashed Duppel* and 
Sonderburg from 6,500 paces were our old long bronze 
24-pounders, rifled and rebuilt as breech-loaders, 54-pound shells 
with 4-pound-charge! I’ve seen them with my own eyes. 

Kindest regards to your wife.° 

Your 
F. Engels