Boston, February 17, 1862.
My Dear Sir, —
I address you not for publication, but in the hope of influencing the “Tribune”
for the good which I know you and it aim at.
I regret your continued onslaughts upon Gideon Welles. If
they succeed, you will be sure to have some wretched political hunker in his
place, and to drive out Fox, the best executive secretary of the navy we ever
had; better where he is than if head secretary, with politics too to manage!
As to the M. matter I can speak from knowledge and
experience. I was employed in Boston, as he was in New York, minus the
commissions. I corresponded and conferred with him; I know the difficulties he
had to encounter, by experience. I say, after full reflection, that his work
was, without being perfect, the best done of any that the government have yet
done, always excepting Stanton's slaying of the Satanic! As compared with
buying through a naval officer, I have no sort of question that M. saved five
or ten times his commission. There is no sort of question, either, that the
commission was too high, and that Gideon blundered! and that M. deserves some
scorching for not disgorging the surplus or the whole; but still, as a whole,
the thing which might have been better done was well done: to blame it too
severely is a premium upon routine.
Had Welles spent twenty-five per cent., or about a million,
more, through the regular channels, he would have been all right. Take care, or
you will drive him out on this issue, and have harpies and do-nothings in the
place of an honest old man and of efficient Fox.
Fox was too good for the old navy, and was successfully
transferred to the head of a large manufacturing company. He projected the
reinforcement of Sumter when it could have been done, in the winter, undertook
it when desperate, in April, and thus precipitated the glorious rising. He put
younger men at the head of our expeditions, which have saved the country, and
will save it if salvation be possible. He has the old-fogyism of the navy to
fight, and yet has done much where more remains to do. Let him not have
to fight the fire in the rear, of the head of the liberal party, the “Tribune.”
Pray note: I don't say M.'s work was perfect, nor he
blameless of greed, but that you may lead to a worse evil by pushing Welles
further!
Truly yours,
J. M. Forbes.
I pray you not to embalm my name in print.
_______________
* Of the New York Tribune.
SOURCE: Sarah Forbes Hughes, Letters and
Recollections of John Murray Forbes, Volume 1, p. 289-90
