Office Of The Evening Post,
New York, August 27, 1861.
I do not much like
the idea of putting Sherman into the Treasury Department. He would make, I
think, a better secretary of war. The great objection I have to him in the
Treasury Department is that, so far as I understand the matter, he is committed,
as the saying is, to that foolish Morrill tariff. Yet I am very certain that it
would be considered by the country an immense improvement of the Cabinet to
place him in the War Department. The country has a high opinion of his energy
and resolution and practical character.
Of Governor Andrew
I do not know as much as you do, though I have formed a favorable judgment of
his character and capacity — not a very precise one, however. . . .
They talk of H.
here as they do with you, but I am persuaded that the disqualification I have
mentioned would breed trouble in the end. The dissatisfaction with Cameron
seems to grow more and more vehement every day. His presence taints the
reputation of the whole Cabinet, and I think he should be ousted at once. I am
sorry to say that a good deal of censure is thrown here upon my good friend
Welles, of the Navy Department. He is too deliberate for the temper of our
commercial men, who cannot bear to see the pirates of the rebel government
capturing our merchant ships one after another and defying the whole United
States navy. The Sumter and the Jeff Davis seem to have a charmed existence.
Yet it seems to me that new vigor has of late been infused into the Navy
Department, and perhaps we underrated the difficulties of rescuing the navy
from the wretched state in which that miserable creature Toucey left it. There
is a committee of our financial men at present at Washington, who have gone on
to confer with the President, and it is possible that they may bring back a
better report of the Navy Department than they expected to be able to make.
Rumor is
unfavorably busy with Mr. Seward, but as a counterpoise it is confidently said
that a mutual aversion has sprung up between him and Cameron. This may be so.
The “Times,” I see, does not spare Cameron, nor the “Herald.” There is a good
deal of talk here about a reconciliation between Weed and Bennett, and a
friendly dinner together, and the attacks which the “Herald” is making upon the
War and Navy Department, are said to be the result of an understanding between
them. Who knows, or who cares much?
I have emptied into
this letter substantially all I have to say. There are doubtless men in private
life who would fill the War Department as well as any I have mentioned, but the
world knows not their merits, and might receive their names with a feeling of
disappointment.
P. S. — With regard
to visiting Naushon, I should certainly like it, and like to bring my wife. I
have another visit to make, however, in another part of Massachusetts; but I
shall keep your kind invitation in mind and will write you again.
W. C. B.
SOURCE: Sarah
Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes,
Volume 1, p. 242-4
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