Diary of George Templeton Strong, October 11, 1860

I begin to be weary of this “sweet young Prince.” The Hope of England threatens to become a bore. In fact, he is a bore of the first order. Everybody has talked of nothing but His Royal Highness for the last week. Reaction is inevitable. It has set in, and by Monday next, the remotest allusion to His Royal Highness will act like ipecac. It has been a mild, bland, half-cloudy day. By ten o’clock, people were stationing themselves along the curbstones of Broadway and securing a good place to see the Prince. What a spectacle-loving people we are! Shops were closed and business paralyzed; Wall Street deserted. I spent the morning mostly at the Trinity vestry office, signing tickets, and so forth. We had to pass on a bushel of applications for admission next Sunday. Lots of Fifth Avenueites sent in letters, tendering a private carriage for the conveyance of His Royal Highness to church, with a postscript asking for a “few” tickets. Corporators of Trinity Church bluster about their rights and insist on reserved pews. I fear we are a city of snobs.

I lounged uptown at two o’clock, feeling my way through the crowd that filled Broadway. Omnibusses and carriages were turned into the side streets and all Broadway was one long dense mass of impatient humanity. All the windows on either side were filled. Temporary platforms crowded, at five dollars a seat. It was beyond the Japanese demonstration, though Mr. Superintendent Kennedy assured me the other day that the Prince of Wales would be less popular than Tommy.

At three, I went into the New York Club and took a seat with Charley, Seton, Pinckney, Stewart, Jem Strong, Bankhead, and others, at a convenient window. We watched and waited, and united in denunciation of F. Wood, Mayor, whom we assumed to have got the Prince in his grasp and to be detaining him with a speech at the City Hall. It was six o’clock and quite dark before the head of the procession reached us. We saw a six-horse barouche pass. We hurrahed. Ladies in the opposite windows waved their handkerchiefs. Little boys in the street hay-hayed. Elder loafers yelled, and the Prince was gone. Keen-sighted and self-confident men insisted that they had actually seen someone in scarlet uniform bowing his acknowledgments, but their assertions inspired no confidence. It was too dark to distinguish colors.

I fought my way home through the crowd. We dined at seven. Ellie and Johnny had “seen” the royal procession at Mrs. Cutting’s in Fifth Avenue, and Babbins at Union Square.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 45-6

Diary of George Templeton Strong, Saturday, October 13, 1860

From any more princes of the blood, libera nos Domine. May this nice-looking, modest boy find his way home, or at least to our boundaries, with all convenient speed.

I’ve been in hard work about His Royal Highness for forty-eight hours. I’m weary of His Royal Highness. . . . The Ball is over, thank Heaven, but the Trinity Church reception and services tomorrow are still to be. What they will be, time must tell. I’ve made the most minute, definite arrangements with Mr. Kennedy and Sergeant Cropsey and the sextons and their aids, but I fear the crowd will out-general me. And I cannot be at the church till the services are actually commencing, for the destinies compel me to accompany or escort the royal party, our guests; and Hyslop and Dunscomb, who will be at the church from nine (when the doors open) till the Prince arrives, are timid and imbecile. I’d give a great deal if tomorrow’s august transaction were done and well done.

Mr. Ruggles took Ellie and me, also Mrs. Hunt, to the Astor Library yesterday morning. Only two or three onlookers were present; Mrs. Schuyler and Mrs. John Sherwood. We waited and waited, lounged through alcoves, looked with vain longings at the titles of nice books. The trustees of the library were biding their time below, waiting to pounce on His Royal Highness the moment the sound of his chariot wheels should be heard. At length, about eleven o’clock, a noise of much people was heard without—a hooray—an opening of the police-guarded door, feet on the stone staircase, and then a vision of a girlish-looking young boy walking swiftly through the library with Dr. Cogswell, followed by the hairy-faced Duke of Newcastle with Mr. S. B. Ruggles and by William Astor, Carson Brevoort, and others of the library trustees escorting Lord Lyons and a lot of peers and honorables beside. They inspected the premises in double-quick time, and at the head of the staircase on their way out. His Highness shook hands with Cogswell and thanked him very briefly, simply, and nicely, just as any untitled gentleman would have done (think of it!), and the royal party was gone.

I spent a few minutes in looking at some of the special treasures of the library—the First Folio Shakespeare, the editio princeps of Homer, and so on, and then went down to Wall Street. . . .

At eight to the Academy of Music. The doors were not yet opened to the common herd, but my exalted official position on the committee admitted me by the royal entrance on Fourteenth Street. The house looked brilliant, blazing with lights and decorated with great masses of flowers. My post was with Charles King, Ben Silliman, and Cyrus Field in the room appointed for the reception of invited guests generally. Certain other committees had interfered with our arrangements in an unwarrantable and unconstitutional manner. The consequence of this outrage was (as we had distinctly foreseen and predicted) that the great majority of the invited guests found their way to "the floor” for themselves without being conducted thither by any legitimate organ. Our duties were therefore light. We "received” a few South American and Portuguese diplomats and General Paez and Major Delafield and Captain Cullum and sundry army and navy people and a score of city militia, colonels in most elaborate uniforms, and Mayor Wood (I had a very intimate talk with that limb of Satan); and at ten we adjourned to the special reception room and joined Hamilton Fish and old Pelatiah Perit (who looked like a duke in his dress coat and white cravat), and Peter Cooper, who looked like one of Gulliver’s Yahoos caught and cleaned and dressed up.

In came the royal party at last, with the Reception Committeemen, who had been assigned the pleasing duty of escorting them. We were presented to His Royal Highness seriatim. I had supposed that shaking hands with a Prince of Wales was indecorous, and that a bow was the proper acknowledgment of introduction to so august a personage; but when the Prince puts out his hand, or extends and proffers his fingers like anybody else, it seems ungracious to decline the honor and say, "Sir, I am so well bred as to know my place, and I am unworthy to shake hands with a descendant of James I and George III and a probable King of England hereafter.” I think of having my right-hand glove framed and glazed, with an appropriate inscription.

Fish had assigned to each of the committee the duty of conducting one of the Prince’s suite into the ballroom, and I was charged with Lord Hinchinbrooke. I had implored Fish to bear in mind that most of our committee (myself included) were unable to distinguish dukes from mere honorables and asked him to be sure to introduce each notable to his committeeman godfather (vide programmes of autos-da-fè). But he forgot to do so, and we marched into the ballroom in a very promiscuous way— Fish escorting Monseigneur, Peter Cooper tagging after them, and the rest like a flock of sheep—and took our place at the head of the room; that is, the east end. Orchestra plays "God Save the Queen,” followed by "Hail Columbia!” Aspect of the house and the crowd brilliant and satisfactory. I fall into talk with a pleasant-looking Englisher, and introduce myself. He proves to be Englehart, the Duke of Newcastle’s private secretary, and an amiable, agreeable man.

A space in our front was kept clean by the Floor Committee, and through this the crowd began to defile. Fish presenting them as they passed and people making "murgeons and jenny-fluxions to H. R. H. George Anthon passed with Ellie. . . . I was pointing out notabilities to Englehart and the Honorable Mr. Somebody, and just indicating John Van Buren as the son of one of our ex-kings, when there was a dull, ugly, jarring report, quickly followed by another of the same sort. Everybody started and peered in vain over the heads of the densely packed crowd, and wondered what it was. But there was no panic and no rush. Presently we learned that the temporary flooring had given way in two places; over the stage a couple of beams broke, causing the reports we had heard. Ellie went down into one of the pits and was frightened, but did not lose her footing, nor her self-possession.

Of course, people crowded away from this dangerous, region in all directions. The promenade became impracticable, and the Prince and his suite and most of the committee retreated to the reception and supper-rooms. A large space was presently roped off, including the two chasms in the floor, and revealing the scandalous, criminal negligence with which the work of constructing the supports had been done. A score of carpenters and policemen and the illustrious Brown were energetically repairing the damage within fifteen minutes after the accident. But there was a general sense of failure and calamity. Everything looked bilious. Everyone said the whole floor was unsafe. There could be no dancing; the ball was a disgraceful fiasco. I explained to many persons that the Reception Committee had nothing to do with the arrangements of the house. Meantime, the carpenters were working for their lives. Brown peering down into the oblong hole looked as if engaged in his ordinary sextonical duties at an interment. . , .

By midnight damages had been repaired and dancing set in. People streamed over every part of the floor the moment the Prince appeared on it. Danger was forgotten. His Royal Highness’s partners, Mrs. Goold Hoyt, Miss Lily Mason, Mrs. John Kernochan, and others, were among our prettiest women. Mrs. Governor Morgan, with whom the Prince opened the ball officially, is elderly and stout, but presentable enough. It is said that she had been taking dancing lessons for the last fortnight, rubbing up her old steps, and that when the quadrille commenced, she timidly inquired, "Your Royal Highness, isn’t it time for us to balancer?” Miss Helen Russell was overpowered when the Prince was presented. Her voice failed her for fear, and she astonished H. R. H. with a series of contortions and muscular twitchings before she succeeded in articulating an audible word. So they say; I saw little of the dancing. The way people crowded round was snobbish and rude and indecent, and I kept on the outskirts, where loafed and lounged dejectedly. . . .

While the Prince was waiting for Mrs. Camilla Hoyt, his partner. Walker, the Presbyterian bookbinder, bustled up with a young woman under his arm, introduced himself, and proceeded, "The lady with whom Your Highness was to dance doesn’t seem to be ready; allow me to introduce my daughter.’’ The Prince said, "Yes, the crowd is very dense,’’ or some such thing, and evaded this ambitious plebeian rather gracefully for so young a person. Ellie heard this propriis auribus. She was presented to the Illustrious Stranger and discoursed with him and danced in the same "Lancers.” I had a very pleasant talk with Mrs. Colonel Scott, and was introduced to Millard Fillmore, who is well-bred and cordial, but I spent most of the evening, or night rather, dawdling about and wishing it were over.

Got home at daylight, weary and worn after nearly nine hours spent in a new pair of patent leathers. Very tired. If H. R. H. appreciate my exertions, he will send me the Victoria Cross or make me a duke in partibus, at least.

This evening at Mr. Ruggles’s awhile and saw part of the Firemen’s procession pass up the Fourth Avenue. It was very brilliant, with torches, colored lights, and so forth. On Madison Square, where they no doubt displayed all their resources of Roman candles and portable fireworks, it must have been a really attractive spectacle.

SOURCE: Allan Nevins and Milton Halset Thomas, Editors, Diary of George Templeton Strong, Vol. 3, pp. 46-9

Citizens of New York, Kings, Queens, Richmond & Westchester Counties to Senator Daniel S. Dickinson, May 20, 1850

INVITATION TO ACCEPT A COMPLIMENTARY PUBLIC DINNER.

TO THE HON. DANIEL S. DICKINSON.

DEAR SIR—The undersigned, your Democratic Republican fellow-citizens of the city and county of New York and neighboring counties, sincerely desire to express in person our high appreciation of your services in the councils of the confederacy. For that purpose, we beg you to name an early day when your high duties will permit you to meet us at a public dinner, when we may have the opportunity of giving full utterance to the sentiments of respect and confidence with which your distinguished political services to our common country have inspired us.

From the commencement of our national existence, the intelligent observer has discovered but one element in our circumstances or condition, from which to apprehend incurable discord among our citizens, or serious peril to the duration of the Republic. So to regulate the action of government in respect to that element as to preserve harmony and to avert the consequent peril, has been the constant effort of the American sage and patriot. For the success of such efforts the prayers of the wise and virtuous in every clime have been enlisted; for it has not escaped notice how deeply our fate as a nation involves the fortunes of mankind. That the great experiment commenced here, and hitherto triumphantly carried forward, may not be checked in its career, must be desired by the philanthropist, wherever found. But to accomplish this purpose enjoins upon the patriotic statesman the exercise of the same prudence, forbearance and generosity which characterized the course of the original framers of the constitution; and it has fallen to your lot and ours, during the deeply—interesting period of your term as representative of this State in the Senate of the Union, to witness the necessity of the constant exercise of a spirit of forbearance to preserve our Union from the severest trial of its strength.

In the trying crisis through which our country, and, we may add, the cause of the world's freedom and of republicanism, is now passing, the State of New York is most fortunate in being represented in the Senate of the Union by one whose patriotism soars above the level of time-serving purposes, and whose eminent talents and moral worth command respect, both in the State he represents and in the Councils of the Nation

NEW YORK, May 20, 1850.

With sentiments of great respect, yours, &c.,

Charles O’Conor, George Douglass, Leroy M. Wiley, Francis B. Cutting, Royal Phelps, Schuyler Livingston, Felix Ingoldsby, James Lee, Joel Wolfe, Edward K. Collins, Henry Shaw, Benjamin Poulteney, Francis W. Edmonds, William M’Murray, Wm. C. H. Waddell, Campbell P. White, Robert H. Winslow, Joseph Kernochan, John J. Cisco, Wm. A. Gasquet, Charles A. Clinton, Reuben Withers, Wm. E. Lawrence, John H. Lee, James T. Brady, John Addison Thomas, Edward Sandford, Nathl. Jarvis, D. C. Eaton, Edward C. West, James C. Stoneall, Joseph A. Drivver, John Ewen, Florence M’Carthy, John H. Brower, Francis Secor, George P. Morris, James B. Murray, Anthony L. Robertson, Thomas W. Clarke, Wm. A. Walker, B. S. Hart, Michael Burke, Philo T. Ruggles, Richard Compton, Fernando Wood, Thomas C. Fields, John M’Mennomy, Hugh Kelley, Daniel Dodge, Edward Strahan, Daniel B. Taylor, Thomas Jeremiah, John A. Stemmler, Thomas Harrison, George Montgomery, Henry Hilton, W. C. Freeman, Edmund J. Porter, James R. Whiting, Henry W. Dolsen, Andrew H. Mickle, John M. Bradhurst, Robert H. Morris, Myndert Van Shaick, Cornelius W. Lawrence, John D. Van Buren, Theodore Sedgwick, Jacob Aims, Thomas Seffern, George Law, John H. L. M’Cracken, John M’Keon, Gideon Ostrander, Robert J. Dillon, Wm S. Wetmore, Emanuel B. Hart, Wm A. Mead, Daniel E. Sickles, Henry G. Stebbins, Tarrant Putnam, Henry Erben, Augustus Schell, A. B. Davis, R. T. Woodward, Wm. B. Maclay, Elijah F. Burdy, Robert Kelley, William Beach Lawrence, John W. Mersereatt, Lorenzo B. Shepard, Garrit H. Striker Jr., Thoe. Romeyn, J. Sherman Brownell, Cyrus Lawton, J. Romeyn Brodhead, Alex F. Vache, Elijah Ward, Solomon Townsend, Thos. S. Henry, Freeman Campbell, Chessenden Ellis, Edward R. Carpentier, John Foote, Nathaniel S. Jarvis, U. D. French, Nathaniel Pearce, Benjamin H. Field, Henry M. Western, W. Beach Lawrence Jr., Frederick R. Lee, David R. Floyd Jones, James S. Libby, Joseph W. Bouck, Franklin S Kinney, Henry Storms, Andrew Clark, John Collins Jr., John S. Gilbert Philip Reynolds, Gideon J. Tucker, Richard Schell.

QUEENS COUNTY.

William Horace Brown, John W. Lawrence.

RICHMOND COUNTY.

John Yates Cebra, D. Denyse, James E. Cooley, Jesse O. Dissosway, Israel O. Dissosway, Richard D. Littell, Lovel Purdy, Joshua Mesereau.

KINGS COUNTY.

John A. Lott, Nathl. F. Waring, Henry C. Murphy, Tunis G. Bergen, John Vanderbilt, Thomas I. Gerald, L. B. Hawkhurst, E. C. Litchfield, Samuel Smith, Thomas G. Talmadge, E. A. Lambert, R. V. W. Thorne, Samuel Sloan, James M. Seabury, Abraham Verplanck, Edmund Driggs, Philip Hamilton Gabriel W. Cuit, H. C. Boswell, John I. Runsie, Daniel H. Feeks, Daniel Eagan, Abm. I. Berry, Daniel Reilly, George Thompson, Cornelius S. Bogardus, John Rice, Joseph Wilson, John B. Bergen, Daniel Van Vorhes.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY.

Aaron Ward, Abm. Hyatt, John M. Stevens, Charles A. Purdy, John T. Yoe, A. K. Hoffman, Jesse Lynn, George B. Butler, Benjamin Brandreth, Benj. M. Brown, S. Marshall, Samuel F. Reynolds, John T. Hoffman, J. M. Scribner, John B. Haskin, Robert H. Ludlow.

SOURCE: John R. Dickinson, Editor, Speeches, Correspondence, Etc., of the Late Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, Vol. 2, p. 431-4

Diary of John Beauchamp Jones: September 2, 1864

Bright, and cool, and dry.

It is reported that a battle has occurred at Atlanta; but I have seen no official confirmation of it.

It is rumored that Gen. McClellan has been nominated by the Chicago Convention for President, and Fernando Wood for Vice-President. There is some interest felt by our people in the proceedings of this convention, and there is a hope that peace candidates may be nominated and elected.

Senator Johnson (Missouri) told me to-day that he had seen Mrs. Vaughan (wife of our Gen. V.), just from the United States, where she had been two months; and she declares it as her belief that Gen. McClellan will be elected, if nominated, and that he is decidedly for peace. She says the peace party would take up arms to put an end to Lincoln's sanguinary career, but that it is thought peace can be soonest restored by the ballot-box.

The President to-day arrested the rush of staff appointments. To-day an old gentleman, after an interview with Mr. Secretary ——, said he might be a good man, an honest man; but he certainly had a “most villainous face."

SOURCE: John Beauchamp Jones, A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital, Volume 2, p. 276

Diary of Gideon Welles: Wednesday, September 21, 1864

The victory of Sheridan has a party-political influence. It is not gratifying to the opponents of the Administration. Some who want to rejoice in it feel it difficult to do so, because they are conscious that it strengthens the Administration, to which they are opposed. The partisan feeling begins to show itself strongly among men of whom it was not expected. In New York there has been more of this than elsewhere. Robert C. Winthrop, once potent and powerful in Massachusetts, a man of position and of talent, not a great man, but a scholar of taste and pretension, a gentleman and statesman, made his appearance in New York, with Fernando and Ben Wood, Rynders,¹ and others, whom in other days he detested. Winthrop is a disappointed man. He had high aspirations and high expectations, and not without reason. Had he pursued a faithful, conscientious course, he would have won high official distinction and influence. But, confident of his strong position in New England and with the Whigs, he courted their enemies, repelled the Republicans and fell. As he swerved from the track, Sumner and others, who did not, perhaps, regret his error, stepped forward, and poor Winthrop in a very short time found that instead of gaining new friends he had lost old ones. For several years he felt very uncomfortable, and has now committed another great mistake. The National Intelligencer, which has endeavored to hold a position of dignified neutrality during this Administration, has finally given way and become strongly partisan. This I regret, for the editor has ability, and has made his paper respectable. His discussions of current and important questions have been highly creditable and often instructive, and I cannot but think it unfortunate that he should take an attitude which will injure him and his paper and do good to no one.

Some attempt is made by the Richmond papers to help the cause of McClellan by an affectation of dread of his superior military attainments and abilities and his greater zeal for the Union. The effort is so bald, so manifestly intended for their sympathizing friends, that no one can be deceived by it. There was a time when such stuff had a market in the North, but that time has gone by.

_______________

¹ Isaiah Rynders, a local politician of New York.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 153-4

Diary of Gideon Welles: Saturday, February 13, 1864

Senator Hale called on me today. Was very plausible and half-confidential. Baker, the detective, had been before his committee. Had told many things of men in the Department. Lowering his voice, Hale said, “He tells some things about your Chief Clerk that are very suspicious.” I cautioned the Senator about receiving all the gossip and suspicion of Baker, who had no powers of discrimination, little regard for truth, believed everything bad, suspected everybody, and had no regard for the character and rights of any man. Told him I would be answerable for the honesty of Faxon, that no truthful man could doubt it, and that, having heard Baker's scandal and suspicion, I requested him to bring me a fact, or find one if he could from his lying detective.

This pitiful Senator is devoting his time and that of his committee in a miserable attempt to bring reproach upon the Navy Department, to make points against it, to pervert facts, and to defame men of the strictest integrity. A viler prostitution of Senatorial position and place I have never witnessed. The primary object is to secure a reelection for himself, and a love of defamation attends it. Had a pleasant half-hour with Preston King, who made a special call to see me. Few men in Congress are his equal for sagacity, comprehensiveness, sound judgment, and fearlessness of purpose. Such statesmen do honor to their State and country. His loss to the Senate cannot be supplied. I like his successor, Morgan, who has good sense and will, in the main, make a good Senator, but he cannot make King's place good. I know not who can. Why are the services of such men set aside by small politicians? But King is making himself useful, and has come to Washington from patriotic motives to advise with our legislators and statesmen, and to cheer and encourage the soldiers.

I sometimes think he is more true to principles than I am myself. Speaking of Fernando Wood, we each expressed a common and general sentiment of surprise and disgust that any district could elect such a Representative. But the whole city of New York is alike leprous and rotten. This brought the question, How can such a place be regenerated and purified? What is the remedy? While I expressed a reluctant conviction, which is gradually coming over me, that in such a vicious community free suffrage was abased, and it was becoming a problem whether there should not be an outside movement, or some restriction on voting to correct palpable evil in municipal government, King maintained the old faith and would let the evil correct itself. If factious or partisan violence will go so far as to elect men like Wood or Brooks; if men of property and character will prostitute themselves to vote for them and consent to have their city misgoverned and themselves misrepresented, let them take the consequences. The evil will correct itself. After they have disgraced themselves sufficiently and loaded themselves with taxes and debt, they will finally rouse to a sense of duty, and retrieve the city from misrule and bad management and their district from misrepresentation. Such is the reasoning of Preston King.

I felt a return of old enthusiasm of former years, when in the security of youth I believed the popular voice was right, and that the majority would come to right results in every community; but alas! experience has shaken the confidence I once had. In an agricultural district, or a sparse population the old rule holds, and I am not prepared to deny King's conclusions, but my faith in the rectitude of the strange material that compose a majority of the population of our large cities is not strong. The floating mass who have no permanent abiding-place, who are the tools of men like Wood and Brooks, who are not patriots but party demagogues, who have no fixed purpose or principle, should not by their votes, control and overpower the virtuous and good. Yet they do. Some permanent element is wanting in our system. We need more stability and character. In our municipalities there needs some modification for good government.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 522-4

Diary of John Hay: Sunday, September 25, 1864

Yesterday Nicolay who has been several days in New York telegraphed to the President that Thurlow Weed had gone to Canada, and asking if he (N.) had better return. I answered he had better amuse himself there for a day or two. This morning a letter came in the same sense. The President, when I showed it to him, said, — “I think I know where Mr. W. has gone. I think he has gone to Vermont not Canada. I will tell you what he is trying to do. I have not as yet told anybody.

“Some time ago, the Governor of Vermont came to me ‘on business of importance’ he said. I fixed an hour and he came. His name is Smith. He is, though you wouldn't think it, a cousin of Baldy Smith. Baldy is large, blonde, florid. The Governor is a little, dark sort of man. This is the story he told me, giving General Baldy Smith as his authority.

“When General McClellan was here at Washington, Baldy Smith was very intimate with him. They had been together at West Point, and friends. McClellan had asked for promotion for Baldy from the President, and got it. They were close and confidential friends. When they went down to the peninsula, their same intimate relations continued, the General talking freely with Smith about all his plans and prospects; until one day Fernando Wood and one other politician from New York appeared in camp and passed some days with McClellan. From the day that this took place Smith saw, or thought he saw, that McClellan was treating him with unusual coolness and reserve. After a little while he mentioned this to McC. who, after some talk, told Baldy he had something to show him. He told him that these people who had recently visited him, had been urging him to stand as an opposition candidate for President; that he had thought the thing over, and had concluded to accept their propositions. and had written them a letter (which he had not yet sent) giving his idea of the proper way of conducting the war, so as to conciliate and impress the people of the South with the idea that our armies were intended merely to execute the laws and protect their property, etc., and pledging himself to conduct the war in that inefficient, conciliatory style. This letter he read to Baldy, who, after the reading was finished, said earnestly:— ‘General, do you not see that looks like treason? and that it will ruin you and all of us.’ After some further talk, the General destroyed the letter in Baldy’s presence, and thanked him heartily for his frank and friendly counsel. After this he was again taken into the intimate confidence of McClellan. Immediately after the battle of Antietam, Wood and his familiar came again and saw the General, and again Baldy saw an immediate estrangement on the part of McClellan. He seemed to be anxious to get his intimate friends out of the way, and to avoid opportunities of private conversation with them. Baldy he particularly kept employed on reconnoissances and such work. One night Smith was returning from some duty he had been performing, and seeing a light in McClellan’s tent, he went in to report. Several persons were there. He reported and was about to withdraw when the General requested him to remain. After everyone was gone, he told him those men had been there again and had renewed their proposition about the Presidency:— that this time he had agreed to their proposition, and had written them a letter acceding to their terms, and pledging himself to carry on the war in the sense already indicated. This letter he read then and there to Baldy Smith.

“Immediately thereafter Baldy Smith applied to be transferred from that army.

“At very nearly the same time, other prominent men asked the same; Franklin, Burnside and others.

“Now that letter must be in the possession of Fernando Wood, and it will not be impossible to get it. Mr. Weed has, I think, gone to Vermont to see the Smith’s about it.”

I was very much surprised at the story and expressed my surprise. I said I had always thought that McClellan’s fault was a constitutional weakness and timidity which prevented him from active and timely exertion, instead of any such deep-laid scheme of treachery and ambition.

The President replied:— “After the battle of Antietam I went up to the field to try to get him to move, and came back thinking he would move at once. But when I got home he began to argue why he ought not to move. I peremptorily ordered him to advance. It was nineteen days before he put a man over the river. It was nine days longer before he got his army across, and then he stopped again, delaying on little pretexts of wanting this and that. I began to fear he was playing false, — that he did not want to hurt the enemy. I saw how he could intercept the enemy on the way to Richmond. I determined to make that the test. If he let them get away, I would remove him. He did so, and I relieved him.

“I dismissed Major Key for his silly, treasonable talk because I feared it was staff-talk, and I wanted an example.

"The letter of Buell furnishes another evidence in support of that theory. And the story you have heard Neill tell about Seymour’s first visit to McClellan, all tallies with this story.”

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 224-8; Michael Burlingame and John R. Turner Ettlinger, Editors, Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete Civil War Diary of John Hay, p. 230-3.

Diary of John Hay: Monday, June 17, 1864

I left Cincinnati Sunday evening and came to St. Louis about 11 o'clock Monday morning. The road is a very pleasant one, though rather slow. I sat and wrote rhymes in the same compartment with a pair of whiskey smugglers.

I reported to General Rosecrans immediately upon my arrival. After waiting some time in an anteroom full of officers, among them General Davidson, a young, nervous, active looking man; General Ewing, whom I had known before, a man of great coolness and steadiness of judgment: Rosecrans came out and took me to his room. I presented my letter; he read it, and nodded: — “All right — got something to show you — too important to talk about — busy just now — this orderly business — keep me till four o'clock — dine with us at the Lindell half-past five — then talk matter over at my room there. Hay, where were you born? How long have you been with the President?” etc. And I went away. He is a fine, hearty, abrupt sort of talker, heavy-whiskered, blond, keen eyes, with light brows and lashes, head shunted forward a little; legs a little unsteady in walk.

We dined at the Lindell quietly at six o'clock: Rosecrans, Major Bond and I. The General was chatty and sociable; told some old army stories; and drank very little wine. The dinner had nothing to tempt one out of frugality in diet, being up to the average badness of hotel dinners. From the dining room I went to his private room. He issued orders to his intelligent contraband to admit no one. He seated himself in a queer combination chair he had — which let you lounge or forced you to a rigid pose of business as you desired, — and offered me a cigar. “No? long-necked fellows like you don't need them. Men of my temperament derive advantage from them as a sedative, and as a preventer of corpulence.” He puffed away and began to talk, in a loud, easy tone at first, which he soon lowered, casting a glance over his shoulder and moving his chair nearer.

There is a secret conspiracy on foot against the Government, carried on by a society called the Order of the American Knights, or, to use their initials — O. A. K. The head of the Order, styled the high priest, is in the North, Vallandigham,  and in the South, Sterling Price. Its objects are, in  the North to exert an injurious effect upon public feeling, to resist the arrest of its members, to oppose the war in all possible ways; in the border States to join with returned rebels and guerilla parties to plunder, murder and persecute Union men and to give to rebel invasion all possible information and timely aid. He said that in Missouri they had carefully investigated the matter by means of secret service men who had taken the oaths, and they had found that many recent massacres were directly chargeable to them; that the whole Order was in a state of intense activity; that they numbered in Missouri 13,000 sworn members; in Illinois, 140,000; in Ohio and Indiana almost as large numbers, and in Kentucky a very large and formidable association.

That the present objective point was the return and the protection of Vallandigham. He intends, on dit, that the district convention in his district in Ohio shall elect him a delegate to the Chicago Convention. That he is to be elected and come over from Canada and take his seat, and if the Government should see fit to re-arrest him, then his followers are to unite to resist the officers and protect him at all hazards.

A convocation of the Order was held at Windsor, Canada, in the month of April under his personal supervision; to this came delegates from every part of the country. It is not definitely known what was done there. . . . .

I went over to Sanderson’ office, and he read to me his voluminous report to Rosecrans in regard to the workings of the Order, and showed me some few documents. . . . We went back and finished the evening at Roscrans rooms. I said I would go back to Washington and lay the matter before the President, as it had been presented to me, and I thought he would look upon it as I did, as a matter of importance. I did not make any suggestions; I did not even ask for a copy of Sanderson’s report, or any of the papers in the case: — 1st, because my instructions placed me in a purely receptive attitude; and, — 2d, because I saw in both R. & S. a disposition to insist on Sanderson’s coming to Washington in person to discuss the matter without the intervention of the Secretary of War. Two or three motives influenced this, no doubt. Rosecrans is bitterly hostile to Stanton; he is full of the idea that S. has wronged him, and is continually seeking opportunities to thwart and humiliate him. Then Sandn. himself is rather proud of his work in ferreting out this business, and is not unwilling to come to Washington to impress the President with the same sense; they wish a programme for future opportunities determined; and finally they want money for the secret service fund.

Gen. Rosecrans wrote a letter to the President Monday night, which I took on Tuesday morning, and started back to Washington.

. . . . I had bad luck coming back. I missed a day at Springfield, a connection at Harrisburgh, and one at Baltimore, leaving Philadelphia five minutes after the President, and arriving at Washington almost as many hours behind him. I saw him at once, and gave him the impressions I have recorded above. The situation of affairs had been a good deal changed in my transit by the Avatar of Vallandigham in Ohio. The President seemed not over-well pleased that Rosecrans had not sent all the necessary papers by me, reiterating his want of confidence in Sanderson, declining to be made a party to a quarrel between Stanton and Rosecrans, and stating in reply to Rosecrans’ suggestion of the importance of the greatest secrecy, that a secret which has already been confided to Yates, Morton, Brough, Bramlette and their respective circles of officers, could scarcely be worth the keeping now. He treats the northern section of the conspiracy as not especially worth regarding, holding it a mere political organization, with about as much of malice and as much of puerility as the Knights of the Golden Circle.

About Vallandigham himself he says that the question for the Government to decide is whether it can afford to disregard the contempt of authority and breach of discipline displayed in Vallandigham’s unauthorized return. For the rest it cannot result in benefit for the Union cause to have so violent and indiscreet a man go to Chicago as a firebrand to his own party. The President had some time ago seriously thought of annulling the sentence of exile, but had been too much occupied to do it. Fernando Wood said to him on one occasion that he could do nothing more politic than to bring Val. back; in that case he could promise him two Democratic candidates for President this year. “These War Democrats,” said F. W., “are scoundrelly hypocrites; they want to oppose you, and favor the war, at once, which is nonsense. There are but two sides in this fight, — yours and mine: War and Peace. You will succeed while the war lasts, I expect, but we shall succeed when the war is over. I intend to keep my record clear for the future.”

The President said one thing in which I differ from him. He says: — “The opposition politicians are so blinded with rage, seeing themselves unable to control the politics of the country, that they may be able to manage the Chicago Convention for some violent end, but they cannot transfer the people, the honest though misguided masses, to the same course.” I said:— “I thought the reverse to be true: that the sharp managers would go to Chicago to try to do some clever and prudent thing, such as nominate Grant without platform; but that the bare-footed democracy from the heads of the hollows, who are now clearly for peace would carry everything in the Convention before them. As it was at Cleveland: — the New York politicians who came out to intrigue for Grant could not get a hearing. They were as a feather in the wind in the midst of that blast of German fanaticism. I think my idea is sustained by the action of the Illinois Convention which endorses Val. on his return and pledges the party strength to protect him. In the stress of this war, politics have drifted out of the hands of politicians, and are now more than ever subject to genuine popular currents.”

The President said he would take the matter into consideration and would write to-morrow, the 18th, to Brough and Heintzelman about Val., and to Rosecrans at an early day.

SOURCES: Abstracted from Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 201-8. See Michael Burlingame & John R. Turner Ettlinger, Editors, Inside Lincoln’s White House: The Complete War Diary of John Hay, p. 204-8 for the full diary entry which they date June 17.

John Hay to John G. Nicolay, June 20, 1864

Washington, D. C.

June 20, 1864.

MY DEAR NICOLAY:

I went blundering through the country after leaving you, missing my connections and buying tickets until I landed in Baltimore without a cent; had to borrow money of the Eutaw to pay for my dinner and hack. Got home tired, dusty and disgusted.

The Tycoon thinks small beer of Rosey's mare's nest. Too small, I rather think. But let 'em work! Val[landigham] 's sudden Avatar rather startles the Cop[perhead]s here away. Billy Morrison asks me how much we gave Fernandiwud for importing him.

Society is nil here. The Lorings go to-morrow — last lingerers. We mingle our tears and exchange locks of hair to-night in Corcoran's Row, —some half hundred of us.

I went last night to a Sacred Concert of profane music at Ford's. Young Kretchmar and old Kretchpar were running it. — Hermanns and Habelman both sang;—and they kin if anybody kin. The Tycoon and I occupied private box, and both of us carried on a hefty flirtation with the Monk Girls in the flies.

Madame is in the North. The President has gone to-day to visit Grant. I am all alone in the White pest-house. The ghosts of twenty thousand drowned cats come in nights through the south windows. I shall shake my buttons off with the ague before you get back. . . . .

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 198-9; see Michael Burlingame, Editor, At Lincoln’s side: John Hay’s Civil War Correspondence and Selected Writings, p. 85 for the complete letter.

Diary of John Hay: Sunday, November 8, 1863

The President tells me that Meade is at last after the enemy and that Grant will attack to-morrow.

Went with Mrs. Ames to Gardiner’s gallery and were soon joined by Nico and the President. We had a great many pictures taken. Some of the Pres^t the best I have seen. Nico and I immortalised ourselves by having ourselves done in group with the Pres^t.

In the evening Seward came in. He feels very easy and confident now about affairs. He says New York is safe for the Presidential election by a much larger majority, that the crowd that follows power have come over; that the copperhead spirit is crushed and humbled. He says the Democrats lost their leaders when Toombs and Davis and Breckinridge forsook them and went south; that their new leaders, the Seymours, Vallandighams and Woods, are now whipped and routed. So that they have nothing left. The Democratic leaders are either ruined by the war, or have taken the right-about, and have saved themselves from the ruin of their party by coming out on the right side. . . .

He told the Democratic party how they might have saved themselves and their organisation, and with it the coming Presidential election — by being more loyal and earnest in support of the administration than the Republican party — which would not be hard, the Lord knows!

SOURCES: Clara B. Hay, Letters of John Hay and Extracts from Diary, Volume 1, p. 118-9; For the whole diary entry see Tyler Dennett, Editor, Lincoln and the Civil War in the Diaries and letters of John Hay, p. 117-8.

Diary of Gideon Welles: Tuesday, February 17, 1863

The President read to the Cabinet a correspondence between himself and Fernando Wood. The latter wrote the President on the 8th of December last that he had good reason to believe the South desired a restoration of the Union, etc. The President replied on the 12th of December that he had no confidence in the impression, but that he would receive kindly any proposition. Wood's letter was confidential; the President made his so. All was well enough, perhaps, in form and manner if such a correspondence was to take place. Wood is a Representative and his letter was brought to the President by Mayor Opdyke.¹ Mayor Opdyke and ex-Mayor Wood are on opposite extremes of parties, — so opposite that each is, if not antagonistic, not very friendly inclined to the President. Wood now telegraphs the President that the time has arrived when the correspondence should be published. It is a piece of political machinery intended for certain party purposes.

Chase says that Howard and Trumbull of the Senate were dissatisfied with their vote in favor of his bank bill, which they had given under the impression it was an Administration measure, but they had since understood that Usher and myself were opposed to it. I told him that my general views were better known to him than them, that I had no concealment on the subject; I had, however, no recollection of ever exchanging a word with either of those Senators concerning his measures; that I had given his financial questions little or no attention, had never read his bill, had but a general conception of his scheme; that, so far as I was informed, it was not in conformity with my old notions, as he well knew, for I had freely communicated with him early, though I had not been consulted recently and matters had taken such a shape I was glad I had not been, and that the whole subject had been committed to him and Congress. I had neither time nor inclination to study new theories, was wedded to old doctrines and settled principles. Usher said he had electioneered for the measure with sundry Congressmen, whom he named. I told him I had not with any one and did not intend to.

_____________

¹ George Opdyke, Mayor of New York.

SOURCE: Gideon Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and Johnson, Vol. 1: 1861 – March 30, 1864, p. 237-8

Circular of the Union Defence Committee of the City of New York, April 24, 1861.

Union Defence Committee of the City of New York,

No. 30 Pine Street, April 24, 1861.

Sir, — At a meeting of the citizens of New York, held on Saturday, 20th instant, a committee was appointed to represent the citizens in the collection of funds, and the transaction of such other business in aid of the movements of the government as the public interests might require.

The undersigned have been appointed a Committee of Correspondence, in behalf of the General Committee constituted at the public meeting, and take leave respectfully to say that they will be happy to receive any communications of information, advice, or suggestion on the subject of the present state of public affairs, and to convey any information which they possess or may receive that will advance the public interests.

With this view they subjoin a copy of the organization of the Union Defence Committee and the address of each member of the Committee of Correspondence, and beg that any subject of interest may be communicated, either by mail or by telegraph, to any member of the General Committee, and they promise immediate attention thereto.

They beg to be advised of the organization of any similar committees of citizens with which they may put themselves in communication.

With great respect, your obedient servants,

Hamilton Fish,	Committee of Correspondence
William M. Evarts,
Edwards Pierrepont,
James T. Brady,
John J. Cisco,

N.B. — The Committee has rooms at No. 30 Pine Street, open all day; and at Fifth Avenue Hotel, open in the evening.

Committee.

JOHN A. DIX,	MOSES TAYLOR,
MOSES H. GRINNELL,	EDWARDS PIERREPONT,
ROYAL PHELPS,	RICHARD M. BLATCHFORD,
WILLIAM E. DODGE,	ALEXANDER T. STEWART
GREENE C. BRONSON,	HAMILTON FISH,
WILLIAM M. EVARTS,	SAMUEL SLOAN,
JOHN J. CISCO,	JOHN JACOB ASTOR,
JAMES T. BRADY.	WM. F. HAVEMEYER,
SIMEON DRAPER,	CHARLES H. RUSSELL,
JAMES S. WADSWORTH,	RUDOLPH A. WITTHAUS,
ISAAC BELL,	CHARLES H. MARSHALL,
JAMES BOORMAN,	PROSPER M. WETMORE,
ABIEL A. LOW,	ROBERT H. McCURDY
THEODORE DEHON,	AUGUSTUS C. RICHARDS

Ex-officio.

FERNANDO WOOD, Mayor,	HENRY W. GENET, President of Board of Aldermen.
ROBERT T. HAWS, Comptroller,	MORGAN JONES, President of Board of Councilmen.

President. 

JOHN A. DIX.

Vice-President. 

SIMEON DRAPER.

Secretary. 

WILLIAM M. EVARTS.

Treasurer. 

THEODORE DEHON.

Executive Committee.

SIMEON DRAPER, Chairman,	PROSPER M. WETMORE,
JAMES S. WADSWORTH,	JOHN J. ASTOR,
MOSES H. GRINNELL,	AUGUSTUS C. RICHARDS,
ISAAC BELL,	RICHARD M. BLATCHFORD,
SAMUEL SLOAN,	CHARLES H. MARSHALL.

                                                                                               

Committee on Finance.

CHAS. H. RUSSELL, Chairman,	THEODORE DEHON,		ABIEL A. LOW.
MOSES TAYLOR,		JAMES BOORMAN.

Committee of Collections and Subscriptions.

A. T. STEWART, Chairman,	WM. E. DODGE,	ROBT. H. McCURDY,
WM. F. HAVEMEYER,	ROYAL PHELPS,	R. A. WITTHAUS

Committee of Correspondence and Publications.

HAMILTON FISH, Chairman, No. 134 E. Seventeenth Street,

WM. M. EVARTS, No. 2 Hanover St.,

E. PIERREPONT, No. 16 Wall St.,

JAS. T. BRADY, No. 111 Broadway,

JOHN J. CISCO, No. 52 Wall Street.

SOURCE: Morgan Dix, Memoirs of John Adams Dix, Volume 2, p. 11-12

Francis Lieber to Senator Charles Sumner, June 16, 1864

Day Of The Battle Of Ligny, June 16, 1864.

My Dear Don Carlos, — If your eye should alight on Mr. Pruyne's remarks in “The Globe,” in which he states that State sovereignty makes it impossible to abolish slavery by an amendment of the Constitution, in which he was supported by Magnus Apollo Fernando Wood, pray send them marked to me. Such things are classical. They serve as the symbolism of State-rights doctrine. A hyper-Calvinist once declared, in my hearing, that God could not save the predestined lost ones, even if he would. I desire much to have this debate — at least, Mr. Pruyne's hyper-Calhounlstic remarks. . . .

SOURCE: Thomas Sergeant Perry, Editor, The Life and Letters of Francis Lieber, p. 348

Colonel Charles Russell Lowell to Anna Jackson Lowell, September 4, 1864

Summit Point, Sept. 4, 1864.

You must not feel despondent about public affairs. Lincoln is going to be reelected. Every officer ought to show double zeal, and every citizen double interest in recruiting, if any military success is to have an effect on the result. I think that four years under McClellan would destroy what is left of the Republic. I am very, very sorry that his name is to be used by men like Wood, Vallandigham, and Cox.

SOURCE: Edward Waldo Emerson, Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell, p. 334

William Cullen Bryant to John Bigelow, Esq., December 14, 1859

new York, December 14, 1859.

Probably Mr. Seward stays in Europe till the first flurry occasioned by the Harper's Ferry affair is over; but I do not think his prospects for being the next candidate for the Presidency are brightening. This iteration of the misconstruction put on his phrase of “the irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery” has, I think, damaged him a good deal, and in this city there is one thing which has damaged him still more. I mean the project of Thurlow Weed to give charters for a set of city railways, for which those who receive them are to furnish a fund of from four to six hundred thousand dollars, to be expended for the Republican cause in the next Presidential election. This scheme was avowed by Mr. Weed to our candidate for mayor, Mr. Opdyke, and others, and shocked the honest old Democrats of our party not a little. Besides the Democrats of our party, there is a bitter enmity to this railway scheme cherished by many of the old Whigs of our party. They are very indignant at Weed's meddling with the affair, and between Weed and Seward they make no distinction, assuming that, if Seward becomes President, Weed will be “viceroy over him.” Notwithstanding, I suppose it is settled that Seward is to be presented by the New York delegation to the convention as their man.

Frank Blair, the younger, talks of Wade, of Ohio, and it will not surprise me if the names which have been long before the public are put aside for some one against which fewer objections can be made.

Our election for mayor is over. We wished earnestly to unite the Republicans on Havemeyer, and should have done so if he had not absolutely refused to stand when a number of Republicans waited on him, to beg that he would consent to stand as a candidate.

Just as the Republicans had made every arrangement to nominate Opdyke, he concluded to accept the Tammany nomination, and then it was too late to bring the Republicans over. They had become so much offended and disgusted with the misconduct of the Tammany supervisors in appointing registrars, and the abuse showered upon the Republicans by the Tammany speakers, and by the shilly-shallying of Havemeyer, that they were like so many unbroke colts; there was no managing them. So we had to go into a tripartite battle; and Wood, as we told them beforehand, carried off what we were quarrelling for. Havemeyer has since written a letter to put the Republicans in the right. “He is too old for the office,” said many persons to me when he was nominated. After I saw that letter I was forced to admit that this was true.

Your letters are much read. I was particularly, and so were others, interested with the one — a rather long one — on the policy of Napoleon, but I could not subscribe to the censure you passed on England for not consenting to become a party to the Congress unless some assurance was given her that the liberties of Central Italy would be secured. By going into the Congress she would become answerable for its decisions, and bound to sustain them, as she was in the arrangements made by her and the other great powers after the fall of Napoleon — arrangements the infamy of which has stuck to her ever since. I cannot wonder that she is shy of becoming a party to another Congress for the settlement of the affairs of Europe, and I thought that reluctance did her honor. I should have commented on your letter on this subject if it had been written by anybody but yourself. . . .

The Union-savers, who include a pretty large body of commercial men, begin to look on our paper with a less friendly eye than they did a year ago. The southern trade is good just now, and the western rather unprofitable. Appleton says there is not a dollar in anybody's pocket west of Buffalo.

SOURCE: Parke Godwin, A Biography of William Cullen Bryant, Volume 2, p. 127-8

George William Curtis to Charles Eliot Norton, November 9, 1864

Harper's Weekly, New York, 9th November, 1864.

My Dear Charles, — Let us thank God and the people for this crowning mercy. I did not know how my mind and heart were strained until I felt myself sinking in the great waters of this triumph. We knew it ought to be; we knew that, bad as we have been, we did not deserve to be put out like a mean candle in its own refuse; but it is never day until the dawn. I do not yet know whether Seymour is elected. I hope not, for while he is in power this grand State is a base for rebel operations; and he is put in power, if at all, by those who would make any honorable government impossible. My heart sank as I stood among drunkards and the worst men, yesterday morning, to vote; but it sank deeper when I saw Aaron L., and others like him, voting to give those drunkards the power of the government. I have prepared a very small sermon upon Political Infidelity, for what infidels such men are to themselves and to mankind!

I am defeated, of course, and by a very heavy majority. In my own county my vote would have been largest of all the Union candidates if my name could have been sent to the soldiers, as the governor's was. As it is, he is some twenty before me. But Fernando Wood and James Brooks are defeated — God be praised! I have never been deceived about myself, but I am forever glad that my name was associated with this most memorable day.

Yours most affectionately,

G. W. C.

SOURCE: Edward Cary, George William Curtis, p. 184-5

Diary of Josephine Shaw Lowell: December 4, 1861

The latest, best and most ardently wished for Republican triumph has been achieved. Fernando Wood is defeated and George Opdyke is Mayor of New York. Hurrah! We scarcely hoped for such delightful news. A Republican Mayor of New York! The idea is positively an almost inconceivable one.

SOURCE: William Rhinelander Stewart, The Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell, p. 22

Abraham Lincoln to Fernando Wood, December 12, 1862

Executive Mansion,

Washington, December 12, 1862.

Hon. Fernando Wood

My dear Sir

Your letter of the 8th with the accompanying note of same date, was received yesterday. The most important paragraph in the letter, as I consider, is in these words: “On the 25th November last I was advised by an authority which I deemed likely to be well informed, as well as reliable and truthful, that the Southern States would send representatives to the next congress, provided that a full and general amnesty should permit them to do so. No guarranties or terms were asked for other than the amnesty referred to.”

I strongly suspect your information will prove to be groundless; nevertheless I thank you for communicating it to me.

Understanding the phrase in the paragraph above quoted “the Southern States would send representatives to the next congress” to be substantially the same as that “the people of the Southern States would cease resistance, and would re-inaugerate, submit to, and maintain the national authority, within the limits of such states under the Constitution of the United States,” I say, that in such case, the war would cease on the part of the United States; and that, if within a reasonable time “a full and general amnesty” were necessary to such end, it would not be withheld.

I do not think it would be proper now for me to communicate this, formally or informally, to the people of the Southern States. My belief is that they already know it; and when they choose, if ever, they can communicate with me unequivocally. Nor do I think it proper now to suspend military operations to try any experiment of negotiation.

I should, nevertheless, receive with great pleasure the exact information you now have, and also such other as you may in any way obtain. Such information might be more valuable before the first of January than afterwards.

While there is nothing in this letter which I shall dread to see in history, it is, perhaps, better for the present, that it's existence should not become public.

I therefore have to request that you will regard it as confidential.

Your Obt. Servt.

A. LINCOLN

SOURCES: Roy P. Basler, Editor, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 5, p. 553-4; a copy of this letter can be found in the Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress;

A Raft in Mid-Ocean

Correspondence of the N. Y. Evening post:

H. B. M. Steamer Swordship
Inside Sandy Hook Nov. 12

This vessel cast anchor here two hours since, after a passage of twenty-two days from the Cape of Good Hope. On Friday morning, 10th inst., latitude 35 degrees North longitude 66 degrees West. The lookout in the foretop descried a strange looking object on the lee bow, which, in nearing, proved to be a raft with a number of people on it.

So singular a circumstance threw the ship into great excitement. The Captain ordered a boat launched immediately, supposing the people to have escaped from a foundered vessel, and of course desiring to be picked up. By this time we were within hailing distance, and the steamer was nearly stationary. A jury mast was rigged on the raft, and they ran up a flag and cheered lustily. Our Captain never swears in English, but is addicted to a sort of Persian oath. By the great ox, he cried, what does this mean?

There were about twenty-five men on the raft, and they were in a very jolly humor. – Seeing the boat lowered, one of the party shouted, Send us some whisky. We don’t want to be picked up. The Captain couldn’t stand that. Where are you going, and where are you from? he shouted. None of your business; send us some whisky, and we’ll give you a despatch to take into port. The raft was now close under the lee of the ship, and a rope was thrown out to it, which they held on to while a barrel of whisky was slung off. As soon as they got it safe, they let go the rope, to which they had tied their dispatch. On opening it there appeared a list of passengers, which the clerk read aloud. The first name on it was Games Guthrie. By thunder, cried the Captain, that’s the Chicago platform! A cheer and a yell went up from the raft as the sail was spread again to the wind. The clerk went on reading the names, the list was as follows: James Guthrie, Geo. H. Pendleton, Horatio Seymour, Fernando Wood, C. L. Vallandigham, S. S. Cox and nineteen others.

When last seen the raft was making south-east, apparently on a bee-line for the cost of Africa.

Respectfully,
BULLJACK

– Published in The Union Sentinel, Osceola, Iowa, Friday, December 30, 1864

The Issue

{From the New York Tribune}

It is no disparagement to Gen. Fremont to say that the meeting of Monday eve in his behalf was the broadest burlesque of the season. It was large, spirited, enthusiastic; but it was not largely composed of Fremonters, nor specially enthusiastic for Fremont. It was honestly and truly an anti-Lincoln meeting, yet there were probably as many present who suport Lincoln for re-election as expect ever to vote for Fremont. The list of officers, the speakers, and nearly everything else, tend to show it is utter baselessness, regarded as a movement to make Gen. Fremont our next President on the Cleveland platform.

We repeat that this is no disparagement to Gen. Fremont, who has many and zealous friends here and a very considerable popularity throughout the country. But the simple over ruling truth is that, in presence of the stupendous events of our time, the momentous issues now impending, all personal considerations seem trivial and impertinent. As we give but a paragraph to a murder or railroad accident which in peaceful times would have absorbed many of our columns, so the elevation of Mr. this or General that excites no general interest in view of the gigantic, bloody, struggle, whereof our whole country is the arena. “Shall the Republic live or die?” is the question which engrosses all thoughts, rendering the aspirations and fortunes of Jones or Tompkins of no account.

Should Gen. Fremont be nominated at chicago – of which we see no chance – he will thereupon become a formidable candidate for President. If not nominated there, he will get no vote worth counting. Tens of thousands who would gladly support him if he had a chance will refuse to do so, seeing that they thereby connive at a Copperhead triumph. Third parties will be of smaller account this Fall than ever before. Hence we lay no stress on the feuds which now visibly distract the Opposition. Tens of thousands among them think they will support none other than a Union War candidate; as many, if not more, are equally strenuous in their resolution to support only a “Peace” ticket; but when the nomination shall have been made, nearly all these will support the nominee, whether the leading name be that of McClelan [sic], Fremont, Filmore, or any one else. And whosoever shall be the nominated there will have to be the Pro-Slavery candidate – in favor, of a “reconstruction” of our Nationality with Slavery left in and Impartial Freedom kicked out. Mr. Wendell Phillips or Dr. Brownson may struggle against this – may persuade himself, and perhaps a few others, that the fact is no fact – but all in c_in “Shall the Union be reconstructed with slavery or with out? Is the main Question to be decided at our next Presidential Election; and the voice of those who wish it reconstructed without will inevitable be concentrated on Lincoln and Johnson; while the other sort will be cast for whatever ticket shall be framed at chicago. And these two tickets will divide between them ninety-nine of every hundred votes cast throughout the country.

We say this, in no spirit of partisanship, but because it is the manifest truth. We are impelled to it by no trace of feeling, no shadow of prejudice; We should support Gen. Fremont quite as willingly as Mr. Lincoln if the former stood at the head of the Anti-slavery host; but he does not. Either Mr. Lincoln must be re-elected, or he must be superseded by the candidate of Vallandigham [sic] and the Seymours, of Garret Davis and Fernando Wood – Whatever any one may wish, this is the only practicable alternative. Gen. Fremont, in order to have a shadow of chance, must more and more command himself to the favor of the sham Democracy; and if he does so his Anti-slavery supports will necessarily fall away from him. Here is a sample:

To the Editor of the N Y Tribune.

Sir: I see my name in the list of Secretaries of the Fremont and Cochrane ratification meeting held at cooper Institute last evening.

So far as that meeting was in harmony with the grand platform of principle adopted at the cleveland convention, I am with it. So far as it sympathized with the principles and policy heretofore advocated by Gen. George B. McClellan and many of his friends, I must beg leave not to be counted in.

I am for justice and equal rights to every man, either black or white, on God’s footstool; for free speech, free press, and no compromise with traitors or with sympathizers with treason, and for the immediate overthrow of Slavery, as paramount to all other objects. I believe these to be the sentiments of the “Radical Democracy.”

Yours, &c.,
D. H. Plumb

New York, June 25, 1864

– Published in The Union Sentinel, Osceola, Iowa, Saturday, July 9, 1864