At the request of the Tycoon, who imagined he had seen
something significant steaming up the river, I went down to the Navy Yard. Saw
Dahlgren, who at once impressed me as a man of great coolness and power. The
boat was the Mt. Vernon, who reported everything right in the river.
About noon the Seventh Regiment came. I went to the Depot
and saw Lefferts, who communicated the intelligence of their peaceful passage,
with which I straightway gladdened the heart; of the Ancient. Cale Smith was
with him as I returned. He was just reading a letter from Hamlin advising the
immediate manufacture of rifled cannon from the Chicopee Works. Lincoln seemed
to be in a pleasant, hopeful mood, and, in the course of the conversation,
partially foreshadowed his present plan. He said: “I intend, at present, always
leaving an opportunity for change of mind, to fill Fortress Monroe with men and
stores; blockade the ports effectually; provide for the entire safety of the
Capital; keep them quietly employed in this way, and then go down to Charleston
and pay her the little debt we are owing her.”
. . . . General Butler has sent an imploring request to the
President to be allowed to bag the whole nest of traitorous Maryland
legislators and bring them in triumph here. This the Tycoon, wishing to observe
every comity even with a recusant State, forbade.
To-day we got a few letters and papers and felt not quite so
forlorn. . . .
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 24-5
