Flat Top Mountain, June 5, 1862. Thursday. — Rained most of the day. Want of exercise these rainy days begets indigestion, indigestion begets headache, blue devils, ill nature, sinister views, and general disgust. Brightened up a little by news that General Pope has taken ten thousand men and fifteen thousand stand of arms from Beauregard’s retreating army. It looks as if Beauregard’s army was breaking up. Later. News of the taking of Memphis and Fort Pillow.
General Cox read me a letter from General Garfield in which he speaks of the want of sympathy among army officers with the cause of the war; that they say Seward, Chase, and Sumner are more to blame than Davis and Toombs! General Sherman said he was “ashamed to acknowledge that he had a brother (Senator John Sherman) who was one of these damned Black Republicans”!
These semi-traitors must be watched. — Let us be careful who become army leaders in the reorganized army at the end of the Rebellion. The man who thinks that the perpetuity of slavery is essential to the existence of the Union, is unfit to be trusted. The deadliest enemy the Union has is slavery — in fact, its only enemy.
