I had a letter last
evening from Secretary McCulloch, inclosing copy of one addressed to the
President, requesting that Commodore S. P. Lee might be put on the Lighthouse
Board in place of Admiral Davis, who had consented to retire. The intrigue and
the impudence of the thing annoyed me excessively. McCulloch is guiltless of
intentional wrong, but is, unaware, the instrument of Lee, who has moved his
father-in-law, Blair, in the matter. I wrote a strong remonstrance to the
President and also to McCulloch against this mischievous and demoralizing
scheme. The President and McCulloch both spoke to me on the subject to-day,
neither having received my letter. The President wished me to dispose of Lee as
I pleased. Said he was a great annoyance to him. McCulloch said he cared
nothing about Lee, but was willing to oblige Mr. Blair.
Stanton read
telegrams in Cabinet from General Sheridan concerning New Orleans disturbances.
Stanton manifested marked sympathy with the rioters, and the President and
others observed it. There is little doubt that the New Orleans riots had their
origin with the Radical Members of Congress in Washington. It is part of a
deliberate conspiracy and was to be the commencement of a series of bloody
affrays through the States lately in rebellion. Boutwell and others have stated
sufficient to show their participation in this matter. There is a determination
to involve the country in civil war, if necessary, to secure negro suffrage in
the States and Radical ascendancy in the General Government. Stanton, in great
excitement, repeatedly spoke of the Attorney-General of Louisiana and the Mayor
of New Orleans as pardoned Rebels who had instigated the murder of the people
in the streets of the city, [said] that they were guilty of this terrible
bloodshedding.
Sheridan's dispatches
are somewhat conflicting. Although a brave and excellent officer, Sheridan
lacks judgment and administrative ability. He is impulsive, but his intentions
are honest and his first telegram was an honest impulse. It struck me that he
was tutored as regards the others, either from Washington or by some one at New
Orleans duly advised.
Stanton is evidently
in deep sympathy and concert with the Radicals in this matter, though he
studied to conceal it. In striving to influence the President and prejudice him
against the authorities of New Orleans, he betrayed his feelings.
There has been a
story circulating in the newspapers that a naval vessel had captured a
slave-trader with a cargo of negroes on board, which were being transported
from the South to Cuba. It was a manufactured rumor which came
from the Radical Freedmen's Bureau agents or tools. Seward alluded to some
information from Cuba to the effect that they wanted none of our negroes on the
island, and in conversation growing out of his allusion, I mentioned the
fabrication of a rumor of a captured slaver. I saw at once that Stanton was
disturbed. I mentioned that I two or three months since instituted inquiries on
information communicated by the War Department, which I found to be totally
groundless. Stanton rose at once on his feet and said the information came from
General Foster. I answered, yes; it was a rumor of negroes kidnapped at Indian
River, but our inquiries had satisfied us that the rumors were without
foundation.
Stanton is, in
matters of this description, a Radical sensationalist, ready to believe
anything bad of those to whom he is opposed; and is himself complicated with,
if not a prime mover in, the New Orleans difficulties and these mischievous
rumors.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 569-71
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