Diary of Gideon Welles: Monday, May 14, 1866

Mr. Smythe, Collector in New York, called at my house yesterday with Senator Doolittle, and both were much interested in the election of Senator in Connecticut. I remarked to them that the subject had been greatly mismanaged, and I doubted, knowing the men and their management, or mismanagement, whether anything could now be done; that Foster and his friends had been sanguine and full of confidence, — so much so that they had taken no precautionary measures, and he and his friends could not, in good faith, make farther move for him, and yet they would do nothing for any one else.

Mr. Smythe said that from information which he had there was no doubt that Ferry would be defeated and a true man elected. There were, he said, three candidates spoken of, myself, Foster, and Cleveland; that they could do better with me than with either, Foster next, and Cleveland last.

I repeated that I could not well see how Foster could now be taken up, and yet so intense were he and his friends that they would engage for no others. Smythe said he would leave this evening and would go on to-morrow to New Haven, confident he could do something.

But all will be labor lost. I have little doubt that if the matter were taken up sensibly the election of a true man could be secured. But Babcock, Sperry, Starkweather, and others, who had managed things at New Haven, would interest themselves for no one but Foster, while his chances are the worst after what has been done, and to now be a candidate would be dishonorable.

The Democrats, who would securely control this, would probably unite on me sooner than any one named, but the Republican friends of Johnson have been manipulated by Foster's friends and taught to stand by their party until they have no independence or strength. The weak and simple conduct of Babcock and the Republican Johnson men, is disgusting. They have resolved and re-resolved that they will not divide the Republican Party. Consequently they must go with it in all its wrongdoing and mischief, because the Radicals, being a majority, will control what is called the Republican Party. This is the light, frivolous training and results of Connecticut Whiggery. While preferring to be Johnson men and to support the Administration, they are aiding the election of a Radical, anti-Johnson, anti-Administration man to the Senate, — all, as they claim, to preserve the party, but certainly without regard as to consistency or principle.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 507-8