Headquarters Remainder Banks' Expedition,
No. 194 Broadway, New York, January 3, 1863.
. . . . A great many perplexing questions have come up
during the week, involving heavy responsibilities, — the ordering of the
various ships to sea, — telegraphing with the Secretary of the Treasury and
Secretary of War in regard to duties on coal, etc., etc.
I have kept a stiff upper lip. Imagine me being asked for
advice and authority to do this and that, by Commodore Van Brunt, Commodore
Vanderbilt, U. S. quartermasters here, and “sich like.” In cases of doubt,
which have required my authority and decision, I have kept an old maxim of mine
before me. Do that, which according to your impartial judgment, tends most to
promote the “good of the service.”
It has carried me safely through so far. . . . .
SOURCE: Francis Winthrop Palfrey, Memoir of William
Francis Bartlett, p. 55-6
