Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, March 11, 1865

Mr. Eames tells me the Court has decided adversely in the matter of cotton captured by the Navy on the Red River. I perceive that the Court is adjudicating on the Treasury regulations and policy of the Chief Justice.

John P. Hale has been nominated and confirmed as Minister to Spain, a position for which he is eminently unfit. This is Seward's doings, the President assenting. But others are also in fault. I am told by Seward, who is conscious it is an improper appointment, that a majority of the Union Senators recommended him for the French mission, for which they know he has no qualifications, address, nor proper sense to fill. Some of the Senators protested against his receiving the mission to France, but Seward says they acquiesced in his going to Spain. I am satisfied that Seward is playing a game with this old hack. Hale has been getting pay from the War Department for various jobs, and S. thinks he is an abolition leader.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 255

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