Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 1.djvu/253

 like myself to a pettish feeling of disappointment in not “seeing their peculiar views made sufficiently prominent.” When a man's whole heart is in a cause like ours, then, I think, he may be believed not to be governed by small personal pride. Besides, the spectacle of war is apt to awaken solemn and serious feelings in the heart of one who has some sympathy with his fellow-beings. I command a few thousands of brave and good fellows, entitled to life and happiness just as well as the rest of us; and when I see their familiar faces around the camp-fires and think of it, that to-morrow they may be called upon to die,—to die for a cause which for this or that reason is perhaps doomed to fail, and thus to die in vain, and when I hear the wailings of so many widows and orphans, and remember the scenes of heartrending misery and desolation I have already witnessed—and then think of a possibility that all this may be for nothing—then I must confess my heart begins sometimes to sink within me and to quail under what little responsibility I have in this business. I do not know, whether you have ever seen a battlefield. I assure you, Mr. President, it is a terrible sight. I am, dear sir,





Gen. Carl Schurz My dear Sir I have just received, and read, your letter of the 20th. The purport of it is that we lost the late elections, and the administration is failing, because the war is unsuccessful; and that I must not flatter myself that I am not justly to blame for it. I certainly know that if the war fails, the administration fails, and that I will be blamed for it, whether I deserve it or not. And