Grimes tells me that the reports in last evening's papers are meagre
and perverted, doing no justice to the Navy Department as it stood before the
Senate, nor to the debate of yesterday. He says Hale was entirely used up, and
had not a single friend in the Senate. Senator Clark, Hale's colleague, came to
see me; says he has privately admonished Hale of the injury he was doing the
country, as well as bringing ruin upon himself, by his strange course. I am,
personally, not sorry that Hale makes this exhibition of his vicious mind and
tendencies. Utterly indifferent to the rights and feelings of others, holding a
position of power and yet not of responsibility, he has slandered and defamed
the good more than the bad, and delighted to show his immensity and ability
from his place to abuse.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30,
1864, p. 507-8
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