Washington, November 13, 1861.
Your letter of the 10th inst. is at hand, and your
imprudence in writing to me will now impose upon you the infliction of a long
letter.
First, as to personal matters; I am domiciled with our good
friend, who seems to love you as though you were her own son, Mrs. Chipman, at
470 Seventh Street. She fancies that she can satisfy you in the matter of a
room or rooms, and unless you are exceedingly particular you will be pleased
with the company.
You ask me, who and what caused the removal of Fremont? I
answer, the primary cause of the removal was his
proclamation. I learn from a most authentic source, a member of the
cabinet, that before the Administration would bestow the appointment of
major-general upon him a promise was exacted from him that he would not be a
candidate for the presidency. Under that pledge he was appointed, and
everything went “merry as a marriage-bell” until the proclamation was issued.
When it appeared, the embryo Presidents in the cabinet at once took the alarm,
and required him to modify it. This he refused to do, but published the
President's modification instead. Then the war began, and a regular conspiracy
was entered into to destroy his influence in the country and with the army, and
finally to depose him. Every other day the report was published that he was
removed, gross charges were made against him that were wholly unfounded in fact;
his subordinate generals were stimulated to disobedience, officers were sent
out to act in confidential positions who were spies upon his every act, and the
select committee of the House of Representatives appointed to investigate the
frauds in this department, almost all of whom were original enemies of Fremont,
were easily and speedily induced to let Cameron go, and begin on him.
Yet with all their sifting of testimony, taking it from the mouths of
disappointed rival contractors in an ex parte manner, and with no
opportunity to rebut it, a member of the committee tells me that they have been
unable to bring home the perpetration or the cognizance of a single one of the
alleged frauds to General Fremont.
Now you well know that I was not and am not a partisan of
Fremont. I told you and others in July that I doubted his capacity for so
extensive a military command as was assigned to him. I would never have made
him a major-general of the regular army; but, being one, I intend to insist
most strenuously and persistently that he shall have complete justice done him,
no matter what may be the effect upon me. General Fremont has doubtless done
some very impolitic, unwise, and extravagant things; but I assert and can prove
that he has himself done or caused to be done no impolitic or unwise or
extravagant thing that has not been vastly exceeded in these qualities by the
generals of the Army of the Potomac, under the nose and with the sanction of
the Administration. The truth is, all the frauds perpetrated at St. Louis,
according to the testimony before the committee, were perpetrated by and under
General Justin [sic] McKinstry, an
old officer of the regular army, belonging to the Quartermaster's Department,
who was sent out to St. Louis by the Administration. I do not question that
Fremont made some unfortunate selections of agents: so has the Secretary of
War, Mr. Seward, Governor Chase, and it is shrewdly suspected that the “father
of the faithful” has sinned in this way so much, and enough you will say, of
the Fremont imbroglio.
The truth is, we are going to destruction as fast as
imbecility, corruption, and the wheels of time, can carry us. The
administration of the Treasury has thus far been a success, and Chase, though
accused of having no heart, has certainly a good head. But, if he had in his
person all of the elements of greatness, he would be utterly powerless before
the flood of corruption that is sweeping over the land and perverting the moral
sense of the people. The army is in most inextricable confusion, and is every
day becoming worse and worse.
Now, my dear sir, it is no flattery to say that an awful
responsibility must devolve upon you. If you determine to probe the sore spots
to the bottom, and that right shall be done, we can inaugurate a new order of
things, and the country can be saved. You have followers — you can control the
Senate. The wicked fear you, and will flee before you. But, if you rest quietly
in your seat, we shall go on from one enormity to another, the evil of to-day
will be urged as an apology for greater evil to-morrow, and the devil will be
sure to get us in the end, and that right speedily. As for myself and my
household, I am determined to serve the Lord. I only regret that I have not the
means to do the good for the country that is in your power.
I congratulate you upon the fact that we now have a preacher
here with brains in his head, and a heart in his bosom, whom it is a delight to
hear, Rev. William H. Channing. I shall expect you to be a constant attendant
with me upon his ministrations.
We have been giving the old commodores an overhauling about
the Gosport Navy-Yard. The result shows that they destroyed ten million dollars’
worth of property in a mere fright. We take up the Harper's Ferry Armory matter
to-morrow, and I presume the same result will be reached.
Everybody here is jubilant over the victories at Beaufort
and in Kentucky, both of the navy; for you must know that a navy lieutenant
commanded in the battle at Pikeville, and that it was an impromptu army that he
was at the head of; the Department only yesterday declining to furnish Nelson
troops, at the instance of Maynard of Tennessee, who so told me.
SOURCE: William Salter, The Life of James W. Grimes,
p. 155-7
