Charles Francis Adams, U.S. Minister to the U.K., to his son, Charles.
London, September 23, 1864
We were sufficiently edified by your report of the conferences with the various parties in authority. I am not much surprised by it. Human patience is not great. When I reflect that mine gives way so easily to the few applications, comparatively, that are made here to me, I can make allowances for those which spring out of an organisation dealing with men by the hundreds of thousands. It is an excellent thing to cultivate good manners as a habit, for thus comes an artificial rein on the passions that benefits all parties almost equally. I have constantly felt great sympathy with Mr. Stanton. Nobody has had a harder place. The responsibility for failures of all kinds is sure to come upon him, whilst the credit of success is apt to be monopolised by those immediately concerned in the operations. It was for this reason that I was rather glad to read the high compliment which Mr. Seward paid him in his admirable speech at Auburn. If he has been nervous and irritable, he has not been without plenty to make him so. What a set of military officers he has had to deal with; how many to set aside for incompetency, or vice, or crime; how many have failed to acquit themselves successfully of the trust reposed in them; how many unreasonable, complaining, exacting and faultfinding, either as agents or as advisers! This is the hard lot of every Minister who is destined to carry on a great war. . . .
