San Francisco, California, February 25, 1861.
My Dear Major: I have
received your letter of 22d of January. I found my trunk at Wells, Fargo &
Co.'s office. I have no news to give you from this far-off region. Everything
is quiet, and the affairs of the department are being conducted quietly and
without difficulty from any source; though, without any excuse for it, the
Government has allowed every department of the staff here to fall into a state
of pauperism, making the military arm as impotent for action here as the
greatest enemy of the republic could desire to have it. The district of Oregon
owes not less than $200,000, and no money on hand except a few thousands in the
Subsistence Department; this department owes probably $100,000, and not a
cent to pay with. Is our Government absolutely stupefied? or why overlook
the fact that they can protect the public interest here at least? There is
abundance of money in the Mint to pay all the indebtedness of the
Government here, and meet any emergency, if the Secretary of the Treasury would
only recognize the fact, and transfer the funds in the Sub-Treasury to the
credit of the disbursing officers. Volumes have been written against the credit
system and the losses to the General Government in consequence of it, when it
had credit; how much more strongly may all the arguments be urged now, when men
begin to doubt its longer continuance! The loss to the Government must be so
much the greater in consequence.
There was a huge
Union meeting here on the 22d. The weather was beautiful, and the day was made
a perfect holiday by the whole population, who, well dressed and entirely
respectable in appearance and deportment, seemed to enjoy the fine weather. The
streets were filled all day, the people going to and fro in pursuit of
pleasure. The resolutions adopted by the meeting were declaratory of the
devoted attachment of the people to the Union, of their opposition to secession
as a right, of their repudiation of the idea of a Pacific republic as
impossible, and expressive of their fraternal feelings toward all the States,
and their duty and interest to bring about harmony. I would that there were no
other sentiments within the broad expanse of our country.
Please present my
kind regards to Mrs. Porter and Mrs. Holbrook, and believe me, very truly your
friend,
A. S. Johnston.
To Major F. J. Porter, No. 66 Union Place, New York
City.
SOURCE: William Preston Johnston, The Life of
General Albert Sydney Johnston, p. 270
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