We can’t expect much from the first reports. Stanton and Halleck think they’re pretty good But you can’t tell. Nobody here can tell. We’re all too far away. You get sometimes Feeling as if you heard the guns yourself Here in the room and felt them shake the house When you keep waiting for the news all day. I wish we’d get some news. Bull Run was first. We got the news of Bull Run soon enough. First that we’d won, hands down, which was a lie, And then the truth. It may be that today. I told McClellan not to let them go, Destroy them if he could⁠—but you can’t tell. He’s a good man in lots of different ways, But he can’t seem to finish what he starts And then, he’s jealous, like the rest of them, Lets Pope get beaten, wanted him to fail, Because he don’t like Pope. I put him back Into command. What else was there to do? Nobody else could lick those troops in shape.