No very striking
matters in Cabinet. Seward read a long dispatch to Mr. Adams. Stanton excepted
to the mention of our domestic affairs in such a document. I cared less about
it in a confidential dispatch to our own Minister, but I did not like the
phrase, or expressed hope, that Congress would concede to the
Southern Members their seats. I preferred to hope that Congress would not much
longer deny them their rights to seats.
Dennison, who has
been absent for a fortnight in Ohio, was present.
Received telegram
from California that my nephew, Samuel Welles, was severely injured by
explosion of a boiler. Am distressed and anxious about him.
Doolittle called,
and I went with him to McCulloch's. Had an hour's conversation. Doolittle is
getting along and doing well. He is an honest, conscientious, and patriotic but
credulous man. In this movement for a convention, of which he is the principal
getter-up, he had permitted himself to be hampered by a hope that he could
control in a great degree the Republican organization and retain it intact. He
cannot give up that organization, of which the Radicals have possession,
without reluctance. This is Seward's policy, and he has influenced Doolittle
much on this point. Even yet he clings to Raymond. Is confident that Raymond
will get a majority of the National Republican Committee to unite in favor of
the Philadelphia Convention. It may be well enough, but is of less consequence
than D. supposes. I think R. has scarcely any influence with the Committee.
Seward thinks otherwise.
I told both
Doolittle and McCulloch that I would thank them to inform me of the shape
things were in, and were to be in, in New York. The President's friends and
supporters were the Democrats, whom Seward, Weed, and Raymond were opposing,
while their special friends were all Radicals and fighting the President. But
while their followers are thwarting and resisting the President, the
triumvirate claim to be his friends, and are actually and undeniably, by their
intrigues, directing his movements, influencing and controlling such men as
Doolittle to evade the true issue. I trust D. is beginning to have a more
correct appreciation of matters.
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, pp. 550-1
