August 28, Friday. The Rebels are demoralized and discouraged, yet have not the manly resolution to confess it. Great is the tyranny of public opinion in all this land of ours, and little is the individual independence that is exercised. Men surrender their honest convictions to the dictates of others, often of less sense and ability than themselves. The discipline and mandates of party are omnipotent, North as well as South. Toombs of Georgia publishes a letter in which he speaks with freedom and boldness of the wretched condition of affairs among the Rebels, and of the ruin that is before them. This is audacity rather than courage. Toombs is a malcontent. Scarcely a man has contributed more than Toombs to the calamities that are upon us, and I am glad to see that he is aware of the misery which he and his associates have inflicted on the country. I have ever considered him a reckless and audacious partisan, an unfit leader in public affairs, and my mind has not changed in regard to him. Toombs, however, was never a sycophant.
Was at the navy yard with E[dgar] and F[ox] to examine the Clyde, one of the fast boats purchased by the Rebels in England, which was captured by our blockaders.
