long seemed to me that the maintenance in such a position, at such a
time, of a gentleman who had to sustain such a universal absence of
public confidence, must have been most detrimental to the army and
to the government.

Men whom one met in Washington were not unhappy about the state of
things, as I had seen men unhappy in the North and in the West.
They were mainly indifferent, but with that sort of indifference
which arises from a break down of faith in anything. "There was the
army! Yes, the army! But what an army! Nobody obeyed anybody.
Nobody did anything! Nobody thought of advancing! There were,
perhaps, two hundred thousand men assembled round Washington; and
now the effort of supplying them with food and clothing was as much
as could be accomplished! But the contractors, in the mean time,
were becoming rich. And then as to the government! Who trusted it?
Who would put their faith in Seward and Cameron? Cameron was now
gone, it was true; and in that way the whole of the cabinet would
soon be broken up. As to Congress, what could Congress do? Ask
questions which no one would care to answer, and finally get itself
packed up and sent home." The President and the Constitution fared
no better in men's mouths. The former did nothing--neither harm nor
good; and as for the latter, it had broken down and shown itself to
be inefficient. So men ate, and drank, and laughed, waiting till
chaos should come, secure in the belief that the atoms into which
their world would resolve itself would connect themselves again in
some other form without trouble on their part.

And at Washington I found no strong feeling against England and
English conduct toward America. "We men of the world," a Washington
man might have said, "know very well that everybody must take care