Wrote Gilpin, District Attorney at Philadelphia, in answer to his private letter as to prosecution for frauds in Philadelphia Navy Yard.
The papers are publishing the details of the expedition to Wilmington, and disclosing some confidential circumstances which ought not to be made public. One of the Philadelphia editors says the facts were ascertained and given to the press by Osborn of New York, a prowling mercenary correspondent of the newspapers who buys blackmail where he can, and sells intelligence surreptitiously obtained. I wrote to the Secretary of War, giving him the facts for such action as he may be disposed to take. He informed Fox that he would arrest and try by court martial.
Intelligence of the death of Mr. Dayton, our Minister to France, creates some commotion among public men. The event was sudden and his loss will be felt. . . . I had a light and pleasant acquaintance with him when in the Senate some fifteen or eighteen years ago, and we had some correspondence and one or two interviews in the Frémont campaign in 1856, when he was pleased to compliment me, on comparing Connecticut and New Jersey, with having done much to place my own State in a right position. We met again in the spring of 1861. He was a dignified and gentlemanly representative, not a trained diplomat, and unfortunately not acquainted with the language of the French Court. A numerous progeny has arisen at once to succeed him. John Bigelow, consul at Paris, has been appointed Chargé, and I doubt if any other person will be selected who is more fit. Raymond of the Times wants it, but Bigelow is infinitely his superior.
SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 205
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