Dear Mohr,

I was very sorry that I could not come on Friday; apart from other reasons, there was the additional one that I had quarrelled somewhat with Ermen and could therefore neither ask a favour of him nor stay away without saying a word. Otherwise I should certainly have come, even at the risk of missing something essential on Saturday.

The business in America is going wrong, and, after all! Mr Stanton bears the chief blame, in that after the conquest of Tennessee he stopped recruiting out of sheer swagger, thus condemning the army to constant attenuation just when it most needed reinforcements for a swift, decisive offensive. With a steady influx of recruits the war, though not decided, was still beyond doubt a success so far. Given continual victories, recruits also came in readily. — This step was all the more foolish since at that time the South was just enrolling all men from 18 to 35 years of age, thus staking everything on one card. It is these men, trained in the meantime, who now give the Confederates the upper hand everywhere and secure them the initiative. They held Halleck fast, drove Curtis out of Arkansas, beat McClellan, and under Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley gave the signal for the guerrilla raids that are now already penetrating as far as the Ohio. One could not behave more stupidly than Stanton!

Furthermore. When Stanton saw that he could not push McClellan out of the command of the Army of the Potomac, he committed the stupidity of weakening him by conferring special commands on Frémont, Banks and McDowell, and splitting up the forces with a view to supplanting McClellan. The consequence is that not only was McC[lellan] defeated, but also that public opinion now says that not McC[lellan], but Stanton is to blame for the defeat. Serves Mr Stanton right.

All this would signify nothing; it could even be useful, if the war were finally waged in a revolutionary manner. But that is precisely what is lacking. The defeats do not spur these Yankees on, they make them flabby. When things have already reached such a pass that, simply to obtain recruits, one declares oneself ready to take them for only 9 months, that means nothing else than: we are in the shit, and we merely want a sham army as a means of demonstration during the peace negotiations. These 300,000 volunteers were the criterion, and by refusing to furnish them the North declares that at bottom the whole affair is shit to it. And then what cowardice in the government and Congress. They are afraid of conscription, of resolute financial measures, of attacking slavery, of everything that is urgently necessary; they let everything drift as it will, and whenever some sham measure finally gets through Congress, the honourable Lincoln hedges it round with so many provisos that nothing whatever remains of it. This flabbiness, this collapse like a pricked pig’s bladder under the pressure of defeats that have destroyed the strongest and best army and left Washington practically exposed, this total absence of any elasticity in the whole mass of the people—that proves to me that it is all up. The handful of mass meetings, etc., mean nothing; they do not even match the excitement of a presidential election.

Along with this, the total lack of talent. One general more stupid than the next. Not a single one who is capable of the least initiative or independent decision. The initiative once again completely in the hands of the opponent for the last three months. Then one financial measure madder than the next. Helplessness and cowardice everywhere, except among the common soldiers. Likewise the politicians—just as absurd and clueless. And the populus is more helpless than if it had been pining under the Austrian sceptre for 3,000 years.

The South, on the other hand—it’s no use shutting one’s eyes to the fact—is in bloody earnest about the affair. The fact that we are getting no cotton is already one proof. The guerrillas in the border states are a second. But that an agricultural people, after such a cutting-off from the world, can sustain such a war, and after heavy defeats and losses of resources, men and territory, nevertheless now stand again as victors and can menace the North with an offensive, that, in my opinion, is decisive. Besides, they fight quite splendidly, and what Union-feeling there still was, apart from the mountains, is now certainly being lost with the second occupation of Kentucky and Tennessee.

If they take Missouri, they will also take the territories, and then the North can pack up.

As I said, if the North does not immediately come out in a revolutionary way, it will get a hell of a thrashing and deserves it—and that’s how it looks.

How is little Jenny?

Remember me to your wife and the children.

Heartily yours,
F. E.