Seward read a letter
in relation to St. Domingo matters, to which I for some cause did not give that
attention which its importance demanded. After he had read it Stanton suggested
that one expression was too strong, he thought. Seward appealed to me. I asked
to have the passage reread, and concurred with Stanton that more cautious
language should be used.
Stanton says there
is to be a large reduction of the force which is moving against the Indians;
that by the 1st of October the force will be about 6000; that large supplies
have gone on, but they can be diverted or deflected to New Mexico and other
points, so that they will not be lost.
This whole
proceeding is anything but commendable in the War Department. Stanton professes
not to have been informed on the subject, and yet takes credit for doing
something in the direction of reduction. When questioned, however, he gets
behind Grant or Pope or some military officer. An army of twenty-two thousand
and a winter campaign, which he said would cost certainly not less than fifty
million and very likely eighty or one hundred million, are arranged, a great
Indian war is upon us, but the Secretary of War is, or professes to be, wholly
ignorant in regard to it, and of course every member of the Administration is
uninformed. If Stanton is as ignorant as he professes, it is disgraceful and
ominous, and it is not less so if he is not ignorant. There are some things
which make me suspicious that he is not as uninformed and ignorant as he
pretends. This matter of supplies, so ruinously expensive, is popular on the
frontiers, with Lane and others in Kansas. I have seen enough of Stanton to
know that he is reckless of the public money in fortifying himself personally.
These great contracts for supplies and transportation must have been known to
him. How far Grant, whom he does not like, has acted independently of him is a
question.
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