Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, July 7, 1864

I am apprehensive of trouble in making future contracts. Old contractors have been attacked and called to account, and will be shy. But the great damage is from the neglect or delay of the Treasury, which does not pay. Honest contracts are not fairly treated by the Treasury. Men are kept out of their money after due, wrongfully. I had the material, and began the preparation, for a pretty strong statement to Mr. Chase at the time he resigned.

Very mischievous efforts are being made in some quarters to injure the President and assist Chase by reason of his going out. I know nothing of the particulars from either of them, but I feel a conviction that the country is benefited by Mr. Chase’s retirement. His longer continuance in the Treasury would have been a calamity. It would have been better could he have left earlier.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 68-9

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: December 22, 1862

We shall never arrive at the correct amount of casualties at the battle of Fredericksburg. The Enquirer today indicates that our loss in killed, wounded, and missing (prisoners), amounted to nearly 4000. On the other hand, some of the Federal journals hint that their loss was 25,000. Gen. Armstrong (Confederate), it is said, counted 3500 of their dead on the field; and this was after many were buried. There are five wounded to one killed. But where Burnside is now, or what he will attempt next, no doubt Lee knows; but the rest of our people are profoundly ignorant in relation thereto. The New York Herald says: “The finest and best appointed army the world ever saw, has been beaten by a batch of Southern ragamuffins!” And it advises that the shattered remains of the army be put into winter quarters.

The weather has greatly moderated. I hope, now, it will continue moderate!

Mr. Crenshaw, who has the gigantic flour contract with the War Department, effected with Mr. Randolph, has just (in the President's absence) made another contract with Mr. Seddon. The department becomes a partner with him, and another party in England, in a huge commercial transaction, the object of which is to run goods in, and cotton out. We shall have our Girards, as well as the United States. Mr. Crenshaw proceeds to England immediately, bearing letters of credit to Mr. Mason, our Minister, etc.

An immense sum is to be sent West to pay for stores, etc., and Mr. Benjamin recommends the financial agent to the department. The illicit trade with the United States has depleted the country of gold, and placed us at the feet of the Jew extortioners. It still goes on. Mr. Seddon has granted passports to two agents of a Mr. Baumgartien — and how many others I know not. These Jews have the adroitness to carry their points. They have injured the cause more than the armies of Lincoln. Well, if we gain our independence, instead of being the vassals of the Yankees, we shall find all our wealth in the hands of the Jews.

The accounts from North Carolina are still conflicting. It is said the enemy have retired to Newbern; but still we have no letters beyond Goldsborough. From Raleigh we learn that the legislature have postponed the army bill until the 20th of January.

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 1, p. 220-1

Diary of Luman Harris Tenney: Saturday, August 9, 1862

In the morning had to give up the book which I had borrowed from Robinson. Accomplished very little during the day. Tried to write Will but could not think fast enough, so threw aside paper and ink. Sale of cattle confiscated at the fort. Archie attended. Stock mostly bought by Babcock and Company, who are getting rich from the government. So are many of Kansas officers interested in the many contracts made for the troops, purposely kept here in Kansas. 9th and Battery arrived.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 24

Memoranda of John M. Forbes: Minor Reforms Needed, September, 1862.

Minor Reforms Needed. September, 1862.

1st. Drunken officers. The public, rightly or wrongly, attribute part of the mischief at Bull Run to one, Colonel M., commanding the reserve. . . . If there be no time for courts-martial, why not quietly shelve every drunkard?

2d. Skulkers. The President found at Harrison's Bar half his army unaccounted for. The papers tell of crowds of stragglers helping to make panics in each battle. The enemy shoot their stragglers. We might at least drop, if not from a tree by a rope, at least from the army list, every skulking officer. . . . The inclosed cutting gives a hint of where the record can be found (the Marshall House and City Hotel, Alexandria) of the doings of 135 officers on Sunday, August 31, when our army was in its greatest peril. Why not call on each to account satisfactorily for his being there on that day? In short, why not have an efficient police system to correct this crying evil?

3d. Spies. The spies have thus far slain more than any other arm of the enemy. We hear of one, a famous guerilla, being condemned to die in Missouri; but it looks like a mere excuse for punishing other crimes. Several have been imprisoned, some compelled to take the oath!! but not one choked to death, — they probably being practised in swallowing hard oaths! We see accounts from Norfolk of three rebel mail carriers caught passing our lines “with private letters only, nothing of public interest,” and these will doubtless be leniently dealt with! Who can say what dangerous cipher those private letters carried? or whether the real object of their mission — a short military dispatch — was not swallowed or destroyed? . . . Shall we encourage spies and informers by continued leniency toward mail carriers from our lines to the enemy's? Washington thought it necessary to hang the noble André. Can it be doubted that the enemy destroy without any compunction any of our spies or “mail carriers”? We hang a man for the doubtful military crime of hauling down a flag, and we let pass free, or punish lightly, men who, by all military usages, and by the dictates of common sense, deserve the heaviest punishment. Half a dozen spies hanged would have saved as many thousand lives, and have given confidence to our own people and soldiers in the earnestness of their leaders, civil and military. It is not too late to begin.

4th. Robbers, in the shape of contractors, and of army officers receiving commissions [on purchases or sales for the government]; in short, the army worms of our military wheat. Of course, eternal vigilance is the only remedy for this disease. How would it do, as a sort of scarecrow at least, to insert a clause in each contract, that the contractor becomes by signing it subject to martial law, both as to his person and property? Without legislation it would not be binding, but many, nay, most of the new contracts will run beyond the meeting of the next Congress, when we may have a law for it, and by signing such a contract, agreeing to be amenable, the party could not complain that the law was ex post facto.

We who are paying taxes feel that the army contractors and the commission-receiving officers are eating us up. The soldier feels it in his bare feet and back, and sometimes in his empty stomach, and a hint from the Department would surely give us such a law during the first week of the session. The enemy does not tolerate drunken generals, stragglers, spies, or thieving contractors. Let us remember the old proverb, “Fas est et ab hoste doceri.”

SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 328-31

Brigadier General Ulysses S. Grant to Jesse Root Grant, November 27, 1861

Cairo, Illinois,

November 27th, 1861.

Dear Father:

Your letter enclosed with a shawl to Julia is just received.

In regard to your stricture about my not writing I think that you have no cause of complaint. My time is all taken up with public duties.

Your statement of prices at which you proposed furnishing harness was forwarded to Maj. Allen as soon as received and I directed Lagow, who received the letter enclosing it, to inform you of the fact. He did so at once.

I cannot take an active part in securing contracts. If I were not in the army I should do so, but situated as I am it is necessary both to my efficiency for the public good and my own reputation that I should keep clear of Government contracts.

I do not write you about plans, or the necessity of what has been done or what is doing because I am opposed to publicity in these matters. Then too you are very much disposed to criticise unfavorably from information received through the public press, a portion of which I am sorry to see can look at nothing favorably that does not look to a war upon slavery. My inclination is to whip the rebellion into submission, preserving all constitutional rights. If it cannot be whipped in any other way than through a war against slavery, let it come to that legitimately. If it is necessary that slavery should fall that the Republic may continue its existence, let slavery go. But that portion of the press that advocates the beginning of such a war now, are as great enemies to their country as if they were open and avowed secessionists.¹

There is a desire upon the part of people who stay securely at home to read in the morning papers, at their breakfast, startling reports of battles fought. They cannot understand why troops are kept inactive for weeks or even months. They do not understand that men have to be disciplined, arms made, transportation and provisions provided. I am very tired of the course pursued by a portion of the Union press.

Julia left last Saturday for St. Louis where she will probably spend a couple of weeks and return here should I still remain. It costs nothing for her to go there, and it may be the last opportunity she will have of visiting her father. From here she will go to Covington, and spend a week or two before going back to Galena.

It was my bay horse (cost me $140) that was shot. I also lost the little pony, my fine saddle and bridle, and the common one. What I lost cost about $250. My saddle cloth which was about half the cost of the whole, I left at home.

I try to write home about once in two weeks and think I keep it up pretty well. I wrote to you directly after the battle of Belmont, and Lagow and Julia have each written since.

Give my love to all at home. I am very glad to get letters from home and will write as often as I can. I am somewhat troubled lest I lose my command here, though I believe my administration has given general satisfaction not only to those over me but to all concerned. This is the most important command within the department however, and will probably be given to the senior officer next to General Halleck himself.

There are not so many brigadier generals in the army as there are brigades, and as to divisions they are nearly all commanded by brigadiers.

Yours,

ULYSSES.

__________

¹ Grant's conviction that the essential purpose of the war was not the abolition of slavery as an end in itself, but the preservation of the Union at all costs was identical with that of Lincoln. This letter can properly be compared with the well-known letter written by Lincoln to Greeley on the third [sic] of August, 1862, in which Lincoln says: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or to destroy slavery." Lincoln understood that the task accepted by him as President as the leader in the contest for national existence made the maintenance of the Union his chief, if not for the time being his only responsibility. He had, however, placed himself on record in many utterances to the effect that if the republic were to be preserved, slavery must be, in the first place, restricted, and finally destroyed. It is probable that in this matter Grant did not go so far as Lincoln. In any case, in common with the President, he devoted himself simply to the duty immediately before him.

SOURCE: Jesse Grant Cramer, Editor, Letters of Ulysses S. Grant to His Father and His Youngest Sister, 1857-78, p. 68-71

XXXVIIth Congress -- First Session

WASHINGTON, April 30.

SENATE. – Mr. Harris presented a memorial from the Chamber of Commerce of N. Y., on the system of taxation.

Mr. Wade, from the committee on the conduct of the war, made a report in relation to the barbarous treatment of our soldiers at Manassas.  The report was ordered to be printed.

On motion of Mr. Wade the homestead bill was taken up.

Mr. Carlisle offered a substitute for the bill which was postponed till to-morrow.

Mr. Nesmith introduced a bill to amend the act of 1851 for a military hospital for invalid soldiers.

Mr. Powell’s resolution calling on the Secretary of State for information concerning the arrest of persons in the State of Kentucky was taken up.  Mr. Powell said he had been much annoyed at the opposition to this resolution.  The substitute offered by the Senator from Mass. (Sumner) was merely an attempt to avoid getting the information asked for.

After some debate the morning hour expired.  The confiscation bill was then taken up.  Messrs. Wilmot and Wright spoke in its favor and McDougal against it.

HOUSE. – Mr. Emmet submitted two bills, one to confiscate rebel property and to provide for the payment of the expenses of the present rebellion, and the other to provide for freeing the slaves of all rebels who have taken arms against the government.  Referred to the select committee.

Mr. Wickliffe asked leave to introduce a resolution of inquiry, to ascertain by what authority Gen. Hunter had issued an order to emancipate the slaves in the manner expressed by Messers. Hutchins, Lovejoy and others.  Objection was made to the introduction of the resolution.

The resolutions reported from the committee on government contracts were taken up.  Mr. Stevens’ motion to lay them on the table was rejected – yeas 17, nays 107.

The following resolution was read:

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be requested to adjust the claim against the Government for the 5,000 Hall’s carbines, through Simeon Stevens by Gen. G. C. Freemont, on the 6th day of August, 18612, and afterwards delivered at U. S. Arsenal at the city of St. Louis, on the basis of a sale of such arms to the Government for #12.50 each, rejecting all other demand against the government on account of the purchase of said arms.

An unsuccessful effort was made to amend the resolution by making it ready “purchased from S. Stevens.”

Mr. Fenton moved to amend the resolution by adding “providing that nothing herein contained exonerate the Government from the payment of any claims arising from advances made in good faith on certificates by authorized officers of the Government.”

This was rejected by 53 against 71.  The resolution, as originally reported, was adopted by 123 against 28.

The House adopted a resolution censuring Mr. Cameron, by a vote of 79 against 45.

A resolution censuring Secretary Welles was rejected – 45 against 72.

The House then went into committee of the whole on the Pacific R R. bill.  Not much progress made.

Adjourned.

– Published in The Davenport Daily Gazette, Davenport, Iowa, Thursday Morning, May 1, 1862, p. 1

The Contract Commission

Hon. Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, and Hon. Robert Dale Owen, of Indiana, recently appointed on a special commission by the Secretary of War, are busily engaged in the onerous and manifold duties upon which they have entered.  They have been clothed with absolute power to decide all uncompleted contracts for guns, cannon, ordnance, and ammunition of all kinds, and it is said there are claims before them equal to sixty millions of dollars.  They intend to act strictly in reference to the rights of the claimants and the rights of the Government, without being prejudiced on behalf of either party.  Their theory is not only to relieve the War Department and the Ordnance Bureau, but even Congress from contests certain to arise out of the applications of interested parties.  Their judgment will be final on the subject, of course open to the acceptance of the contractors.  Should they refuse the award of the Commission, they will be thrown upon Congress for relief.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 5, 1862, p. 2