The President is greatly importuned and pressed by cunning intrigues
just at this time. Thurlow Weed and Raymond are abusing his confidence and good
nature badly. Hay says they are annoying the President sadly. This he tells Mr.
Fox, who informs me. They want, Hay says, to control the Navy Yard but dislike
to come to me, for I give them no favorable response. They claim that every
mechanic or laborer who does not support the Administration should be turned
out of employment. Hay's representations alarmed Fox, who made it a point to
call on the President. F. reports that the President was feeling very well over
the election returns, and, on the subject of the Navy Yard votes, expressed his
intention of not further interfering but will turn the whole matter over to me
whenever the politicians call upon him. I have no doubt he thinks so,
but when Weed and Raymond, backed by Seward, insist that action must be taken,
he will hardly know how to act. His convictions and good sense will place him
with me, but they will alarm him with forebodings of disaster if he is not
vindictive. Among other things an appeal has been made to him in behalf of
Scofield, a convicted fraudulent contractor, who is now in prison to serve out
his sentence. Without consulting me, the President has referred the subject to
Judge-Advocate-General Holt, to review and report to him. Holt knows nothing of
the case, and, with his other duties, cannot examine this matter thoroughly.
Why should the President require him, an officer of another Department, wholly
unacquainted with the subject, to report upon it? There are probably two
thousand pages of manuscript. The New York party jobbers are in this thing. They
will . . . try to procure [Scofield's] release and pardon for a consideration.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the
Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866,
p. 175-6
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