Yesterday Nicolay who has been several days in New York
telegraphed to the President that Thurlow Weed had gone to Canada, and asking
if he (N.) had better return. I answered he had better amuse himself there for
a day or two. This morning a letter came in the same sense. The President, when
I showed it to him, said, — “I think I know where Mr. W. has gone. I think he
has gone to Vermont not Canada. I will tell you what he is trying to do. I have
not as yet told anybody.
“Some time ago, the Governor of Vermont came to me ‘on
business of importance’ he said. I fixed an hour and he came. His name is Smith.
He is, though you wouldn't think it, a cousin of Baldy Smith. Baldy is large,
blonde, florid. The Governor is a little, dark sort of man. This is the story
he told me, giving General Baldy Smith as his authority.
“When General McClellan was here at Washington, Baldy Smith
was very intimate with him. They had been together at West Point, and friends. McClellan
had asked for promotion for Baldy from the President, and got it. They were
close and confidential friends. When they went down to the peninsula, their
same intimate relations continued, the General talking freely with Smith about
all his plans and prospects; until one day Fernando Wood and one other
politician from New York appeared in camp and passed some days with McClellan.
From the day that this took place Smith saw, or thought he saw, that McClellan was
treating him with unusual coolness and reserve. After a little while he
mentioned this to McC. who, after some talk, told Baldy he had something to
show him. He told him that these people who had recently visited him, had been
urging him to stand as an opposition candidate for President; that he had
thought the thing over, and had concluded to accept their propositions. and had
written them a letter (which he had not yet sent) giving his idea of the proper
way of conducting the war, so as to conciliate and impress the people of the
South with the idea that our armies were intended merely to execute the laws
and protect their property, etc., and pledging himself to conduct the war in
that inefficient, conciliatory style. This letter he read to Baldy, who, after
the reading was finished, said earnestly:— ‘General, do you not see that looks
like treason? and that it will ruin you and all of us.’ After some further
talk, the General destroyed the letter in Baldy’s presence, and thanked him heartily
for his frank and friendly counsel. After this he was again taken into the
intimate confidence of McClellan. Immediately after the battle of Antietam, Wood
and his familiar came again and saw the General, and again Baldy saw an immediate
estrangement on the part of McClellan. He seemed to be anxious to get his
intimate friends out of the way, and to avoid opportunities of private
conversation with them. Baldy he particularly kept employed on reconnoissances and
such work. One night Smith was returning from some duty he had been performing,
and seeing a light in McClellan’s tent, he went in to report. Several persons
were there. He reported and was about to withdraw when the General requested
him to remain. After everyone was gone, he told him those men had been there
again and had renewed their proposition about the Presidency:— that this time
he had agreed to their proposition, and had written them a letter acceding to
their terms, and pledging himself to carry on the war in the sense already
indicated. This letter he read then and there to Baldy Smith.
“Immediately thereafter Baldy Smith applied to be transferred
from that army.
“At very nearly the same time, other prominent men asked the
same; Franklin, Burnside and others.
“Now that letter must be in the possession of Fernando Wood,
and it will not be impossible to get it. Mr. Weed has, I think, gone to Vermont
to see the Smith’s about it.”
I was very much surprised at the story and expressed my
surprise. I said I had always thought that McClellan’s fault was a
constitutional weakness and timidity which prevented him from active and timely
exertion, instead of any such deep-laid scheme of treachery and ambition.
The President replied:— “After the battle of Antietam I went
up to the field to try to get him to move, and came back thinking he would move
at once. But when I got home he began to argue why he ought not to move. I
peremptorily ordered him to advance. It was nineteen days before he put a man
over the river. It was nine days longer before he got his army across, and then
he stopped again, delaying on little pretexts of wanting this and that. I began
to fear he was playing false, — that he did not want to hurt the enemy. I saw
how he could intercept the enemy on the way to Richmond. I determined to make
that the test. If he let them get away, I would remove him. He did so, and I
relieved him.
“I dismissed Major Key for his silly, treasonable talk
because I feared it was staff-talk, and I wanted an example.
"The letter of Buell furnishes another evidence in
support of that theory. And the story you have heard Neill tell about Seymour’s
first visit to McClellan, all tallies with this story.”
SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and
Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 224-8; Michael Burlingame and John R.
Turner Ettlinger, Editors, Inside Lincoln’s
White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay, p. 230-3.
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