There was no
Cabinet-meeting yesterday, and labor in the Department was suspended on account
of the funeral of Lieutenant-General Scott.
Seward sends me a
note in pencil, signed by his initials, with a telegraph from Dart, District
Attorney of Western New York, stating that Captain Bryson wanted two tugs to
assist him in guarding the river. Seward says, in pencil, that the President
thinks I had better charter the steamers. He sent his clerk, Mr. Chew, with
this note. The whole thing was one of those low, intriguing, petty,
contemptible proceedings, shunning responsibility, to which Seward sometimes
resorts. I am sorry to write so of one in his position and an associate, but I
expressed the matter to Chew without hard words, showing Seward's weakness,
[and saying] that this is a war on the Irish in which he, Stanton, and Grant
fear to do their duty, but wish me to assume it.
I called on the President
and spoke of the management of this Fenian movement a little earnestly, and a
little freely. Reminded him that I had some weeks ago, when the subject was
brought forward in Cabinet, suggested that the Irish population was an element
in our politics, and, therefore, it seemed proper that there should be unity in
the Cabinet and among high officials. I consequently proposed that General
Grant, who was stationing the military forces on the frontiers West and South,
should make a formal communication in accord with the Secretary of War, which
all could approve and with which we should all be identified. Stanton was
alarmed, I saw; did not think it necessary to take such steps; and from that
time the subject has been dropped. I remarked to the President that the
proceedings had been singular; that this Fenian movement had appeared to me to
be a great bubble, nevertheless there was no denying the fact that large
numbers were engaged in it; that they had large supplies of arms; that along
our frontier from Eastport to Detroit there had been gatherings of armed men
threatening to cross into Canada; that we had sent a naval force by request to
Eastport; that our only gunboat on the Lakes had been detained by special
request at Buffalo; and now the Secretary of State was calling on me to charter
steamers and arm them; chartering vessels for military purposes belonged
properly to the Army or War Department. By treaty stipulation we are to have
but one naval vessel on the Lakes. Where, I asked him, were the revenue cutters
which performed police duty? In all this time the War Department has done
nothing. No proclamation has been issued. How and by what authority are we to
capture or interfere with prisoners?
The President said
it would be well to communicate with Commander Bryson, of the naval steamer
Michigan, and ascertain whether additional vessels were wanted. I said that we
had revenue cutters on the Lakes, but none were at Buffalo, where they were
most wanted; that the Michigan had been detained there now some weeks awaiting
a cutter. He thought I had better see the Secretaries of Treasury and State.
McCulloch was
confident there were cutters at Buffalo, but on sending for the clerk in charge
he found he was mistaken. He said he had turned the whole subject of Fenianism
over to Attorney-General Speed, who is devoted to Stanton and Seward.
Seward was in a fog.
Did not want to issue a proclamation. I asked what the naval vessels were to
do, what authority I had to charter steamers if there was not a state of war.
If it was police duty, he or the Treasury should attend to it. I inquired about
the military. He said Stanton wanted to keep clear of this question. I well
knew this, and he wants me to do duties which belong to him and thus enlist the
Irish element against the Administration.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 518-20
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