A late dispatch on Saturday night from Cairo informs me that
a dam at Alexandria has been constructed and our fleet is passing the falls.
Lieutenant-Commander Phelps had left my house only about an hour before the
dispatch was received. We had passed most of the evening in discussing Red
River affairs. The news of the passage of the whole fleet is since confirmed.
It is most gratifying intelligence.
The author of the forged proclamation has been detected. His
name is Howard, and he has been long connected with the New York press, but
especially with the Times. If I am not mistaken, he has been one of my
assailants and a defamer of the Department. He is of a pestiferous class of
reckless sensation-writers for an unscrupulous set of journalists who misinform
the public mind. Scarcely one of them has regard for truth, and nearly all make
use of their positions to subserve selfish, mercenary ends. This forger and
falsifier Howard is a specimen of the miserable tribe. The seizure of the
office of the World and Journal of Commerce for publishing this
forgery was hasty, rash, inconsiderate, and wrong, and cannot be defended. They
are mischievous and pernicious, working assiduously against the Union and the
Government and giving countenance and encouragement to the Rebellion, but were
in this instance the dupes, perhaps the willing dupes, of a knave and wretch.
The act of suspending these journals, and the whole arbitrary and oppressive
proceedings, had its origin with the Secretary of State. Stanton, I have no
doubt, was willing to act on Seward's promptings, and the President, in
deference to Seward, yielded to it. These things are to be regretted. They
weaken the Administration and strengthen its enemies. Yet the Administration
ought not to be condemned for the misdeeds of one, or at most two, of its
members. They would not be if the President was less influenced by them.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles,
Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 —
December 31, 1866, p. 37-8
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